Black Deathways: An African Methodist History, 1829-1916

This study will focus on the transformations of death practices and the shifting roles of death workers from 1829-1916. The Postbellum portion of this study will focus on African Methodist communities in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee as practices and people moved West to the states of Montana, Colorado, and California. These practices experienced changes as a result of rising literacy rates, the establishment of Black churches, and from the movement of Black people within the South. More changes occurred with the creation of mutual aid societies and Black-owned funeral homes. Black funeral directors provided crucial services for communities whose needs were not being met by the white population. At the heart of these practices and changes to these practices is an emphasis on community building. This study will speak to larger scholarly works on the death care industry of the second half of the nineteenth century and offer insights into the current segregated state of the funeral industry