Link: Black Funeral Directors and Civil Rights
Despite being legally freed by the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1963, African Americans were still in economic and social bondage after the Civil War. In the years immediately following the Civil War, Blacks faced difficult economic prospects and were discriminated against and faced threats of violence from individuals and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (Holloway, 2002, p. 134). Discrimination began to be codified into laws, known as Jim Crow laws, in the late 1800s. Black funeral directors advanced the cause of Civil Rights, defined as basic rights that allow a group to fully participate in the social, political, and economic life of a society, through social support, financial support, and activism despite threats of violence and potential adverse financial impacts.
As part of my African American Deathways course at Marian University, I explored how Black Funeral Directors were involved in the fight for civil right.