Member-only story
Segregation in American Cemeteries
Even in death, true equality is elusive.
The Jim Crow era brought about some of the most pointless divisions in America. Restaurants, buses, schools, churches, and even cemeteries were segregated by race. This left many black people without a place to bury their dead. To solve this problem, black people began starting funeral homes as a way to serve their communities as well as gain a sense of autonomy in a world that was actively hostile towards their very existence.
Some death workers, especially white death workers, have poor understandings of how different hair types and skin tones work. This inability or unwillingness to make black people look like themselves in death reinforces vestiges of the Jim Crow era. Even today, in some old Jim Crow cemeteries, the white side will be neatly manicured while the black sided will be overgrown and poorly maintained. This stark division attests to the resonating effects of segregationist policies. This makes some black people unwilling to go to work with white or non-black death workers.
