Dignity in Death for Black Families at a Brooklyn Funeral Home

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By Noah Remnick

Before he could even talk, A’mani Miller worked as a model. As early as 2 years old, he graced billboards and magazine pages, walnut-brown eyes squinting above a wide smile. Family and friends took to calling him "Mado," mimicking the way his relatives from the Caribbean said the name of his profession. So his mother, Allison Shinn, found it a particularly cruel irony that when Mr. Miller was murdered at 23, his killer had left him nearly unrecognizable.

On March 14, the police found Mr. Miller face down in the fifth-floor hallway of a housing complex in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. Dozens of slashes lacerated his torso, and bullets had shattered his skull. Perhaps most unnerving were the twin W's carved into his left cheek and lower lip, leaving trails of flayed skin along their edges.

Soon after Ms. Shinn saw her son's corpse, she came to the harsh realization that he might have been too disfigured for an open-coffin funeral. Desperate to provide her son a worthy farewell, she took his body to the Lawrence H. Woodward Funeral Home in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

"Just make him look like himself," Ms. Shinn recalled asking. "I want people to remember him the way he lived, not the way he died."

Lynda Thompson-Lindsay and Vicki Thompson-Simmons have heard such plaintive appeals before. As the Woodward's managers, the sisters have handled deaths of every sort for families in Brooklyn, nearly all of them black. While crime has subsided throughout New York City, many of their cases are products of violence.

After death, black bodies in America have often been displayed in grotesque and dehumanizing ways — from public lynchings to Michael Brown left lying for hours on hot pavement in Ferguson, Mo. The Thompsons seek to reverse that painful legacy: commemorating, honoring and restoring dignity to members of their community upon dying in a way that can elude them in life.

"Our society has become immune to death in the black community," Ms. Thompson-Simmons said. "We want people to understand we have history and our lives matter."

The Thompson sisters belong to a long tradition of black funeral directors, professionals who hold a singular role in their communities. For centuries, these undertakers have handled the bodies that their white counterparts would rarely touch, while preserving the mourning rituals of homegoing that began to evolve during the slave trade.

In that era, many slaves conceived of death as a kind of emancipation — one that might bring the soul home to Africa. W. E. B. Du Bois described this feeling in "The Souls of Black Folk," writing, "Of death the Negro showed little fear, but talked of it familiarly and even fondly as simply crossing the waters, perhaps — who knows? — back to his ancient forests again."

The ceremonies have also served as important political platforms. In 1955, at the funeral of 14-year-old Emmett Till, the casket was left open to expose the brutality of his lynching. And this month, a crowd of protesters marched alongside the casket at the funeral of Philando Castile, a black man shot by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota.

At Woodward, the funeral of Yusef Hawkins provided another such moment. After Mr. Hawkins, a 16-year-old from East New York, was attacked by a white mob and shot to death in Bensonhurst in August 1989, thousands poured into the pews at Woodward to pay tribute, defying a pair of bomb threats. "The whole nation must have a sense of outrage," Rev. Jesse L. Jackson declared to those gathered on the street outside the service. The crowd chanted, "We want to march!"

For close to 100 years, Woodward's proprietors have seen their community through many of its most trying moments. A few years after moving to New York from Spartanburg, S.C., in 1920, the funeral home's founder, Lawrence H. Woodward, opened his business on Fulton Street. It later moved to Schenectady Avenue, before settling in its current location at 1 Troy Avenue, a low-slung beige brick building near a hospital and a low-income housing complex. After Mr. Woodward died in 1961, the funeral home landed in the hands of its director, Melvin D. Thompson. When Mr. Thompson died last fall, he left the business to his two daughters. Under their stewardship, Woodward's staff consists almost entirely of black women.

The Thompson sisters were well schooled in the manners and sober realities of the family trade. After school, Mr. Thompson would pick up his daughters in a stately black hearse and drive them to Woodward to do their homework amid rows of coffins. While the girls were still in elementary school, their father sat them down one evening and made plain the outlines of their inheritance. "You should both know that your mother and I will die one day," the sisters recalled him saying. "And you’ll be the only ones here."

That day arrived during a period of exceptional flux in the industry. Across the country, black funeral homes have closed at a startling rate, as large chain companies absorb smaller, family-owned rivals. Membership at the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, the country's largest group of African-American undertakers, has fallen to 1,200 from 2,000 over the last two decades.

"The industry is closing in on itself, and it's giving families fewer and fewer options," Ms. Thompson-Simmons said. "We’re doing well, but it can feel like someone is breathing down our necks."

The pressure on the sisters to close Woodward has grown stronger as gentrification takes hold in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Almost daily, their stack of mail includes letters from real estate developers offering seven-figure sums for their property, which includes a 70-car parking lot across the street from the funeral home.

"It's a lot of money, but we have a responsibility to this community," Ms. Thompson-Lindsay said. "We’re talking about generations of trust and tradition. You can't just sell that."

The stakes extend beyond business, Ms. Thompson-Simmons said. "It's dangerous when these places close because they play a pivotal role in the black community," she said. "We see firsthand what happens when things fall apart in the neighborhood."

The Thompsons have acted as civic leaders in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The sisters proudly point to dozens of plaques and certificates of appreciation from the N.A.A.C.P., the City Council and other organizations.

Ms. Thompson-Lindsay, the older and more reticent of the two, specializes in getting bodies ready for viewing, often spending entire days holed up in the frigid and antiseptic preparation room. She recalled once constructing an entire eyelid out of wax for a shooting victim. "That's called skill," she said with pride.

Ms. Thompson-Simmons mainly deals with the living, shepherding bereaved families through the delicate details of the funeral process. Intuitive and gregarious, she knows just when to offer a handkerchief or coax a memory.

After her father died, Ms. Thompson-Simmons, an adept businesswoman, refashioned the home's once-dreary display area into a bright showroom in which coffins rest several feet in the air, above sleek, translucent bases. It is there that the Thompsons take grieving families to ask as comfortingly as possible: Where do you want to lay your loved one to rest? And how much are you willing to pay for it? The least expensive coffin is just over $1,000, but Woodward's most popular model is an unassuming $1,895 model built from 20-gauge steel.

"No one wants to seem stingy," Ms. Thompson-Simmons explained.

The highest-priced coffin — the $34,755 "Citadel" — comes reinforced with 48 ounces of solid bronze and brushed with amber. Its interior is twice-sealed and lined with velvet. Only once in the last decade has it found a buyer: Mr. Thompson himself.

When their father died, of circulatory problems caused by diabetes, the sisters arranged for a king's farewell. One by one, hundreds of mourners — family and friends, but also clients and community leaders — filed into Woodward to offer condolences. Mr. Thompson lay in repose, dressed in a crisp black suit, purple necktie and pocket square, his mustache and crown of hair neatly trimmed. The service lasted several hours, as a bevy of preachers praised him. Afterward, one guest told the Thompson sisters that he doubted even President Obama would receive such a magnificent interment.

Most funerals at Woodward are not so regal. But in keeping with the homegoing conventions, there is often a lively service with songs and stories. The deceased is buried with objects of importance — typically Bibles and rosaries, but sometimes less holy mementos, like cash and bottles of liquor.

"We can't reinvent the wheel," Ms. Thompson-Simmons said, "but we do something slightly different and special for everyone."

They once held a service for a motorcyclist known as Ghost. At his family's request, the Thompsons propped up his coffin at a 45-degree angle, so guests could better see his outfit: three types of leather, with a sword by his side.

If someone dies alone, without friends or family, the Woodward staff files into the pews, putting aside business to sing and pray for the deceased.

The Thompsons adhere to a traditional Christian understanding of the afterlife, but they have prepared for their own deaths with unsentimental pragmatism. They both expect their families to be buried at Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn, and Ms. Thompson-Simmons has even chosen her own coffin — a crimson-red model with a champagne-colored lining adorned with three medallions.

"We’re not morbid, we’re just prepared," said Ms. Thompson-Lindsay, who bought life insurance policies for her children days after they were born.

Still, some deaths challenge their resolve. The case of A’mani Miller proved disquieting even to the initiated. When his body arrived from the coroner's office, long incisions from the autopsy split his legs, arms, torso and head. For two straight days, a funeral director named Simona Ross worked over the body. Using a photo of Mr. Miller as a template, she stapled his skull back together and sutured his gashes with hundreds of minuscule stitches, which she concealed with a thick coating of skin-colored wax. The W's were erased. Where the killer had slit Mr. Miller's eyebrow, Ms. Ross pasted a clump of human hair. Where the bullets had perforated his head, she slid on a baseball cap that read "Mado" across the front.

"Death is never pretty, and often people die looking their worst," Ms. Thompson-Lindsay said. "We’ll never replace him, but it's a chance for a mother to see her son die with dignity."

She and her sister find fulfillment in that labor, but also feel its emotional burden. Growing up, they were warned that funeral directors often become alcoholics. "You feel this sense of alienation," Ms. Thompson-Lindsay said. "I spend my day surrounded by death. How do I just leave that at the door when I get home?"

Ms. Thompson-Lindsay finds that people have grown dubious of even congenial gestures. When her friends end up in hospitals or nursing homes, she rarely visits for fear of being called a coffin chaser.

"To many people, we represent death. We’re like grim reapers," Ms. Thompson-Simmons said. "Everywhere I go, I’m always conscious of my behavior. I worry that if I shop or drink or even laugh, people will find it disrespectful somehow."

Yet the sisters have never considered giving up their positions. "This is a calling," Ms. Thompson-Lindsay said. "It requires a very particular view of life."

Ms. Thompson-Simmons's daughters, Chanell and Nicole Irvine, resolved long ago to succeed their mother at the helm. They are completing their residencies at mortuary school along with Ms. Thompson-Lindsay's daughter, Kendall Lindsay. Still, they harbor doubts.

"I’m just getting into this industry, but I already see what it can do to you," said Chanell, 30. "When I’m in a service standing there stoically observing it all, I can't show any emotion. That weighs on me."

When she is not organizing services, Chanell fills most of her time in the basement of Woodward sorting through mounds of paperwork. Since it first opened in 1923, the funeral home has kept scrupulous documentation on every person it has interred. Though the Thompsons have begun digitizing their files, most remain stowed away in ledgers that pile knee-high behind a stock of reserve coffins. Their pages have tattered and yellowed, but the Thompsons refer to them regularly. Several times each week, families visit Woodward seeking information about their ancestry. We want to learn about our great-grandmother, they might say, and all we know is who buried her.

"Sometimes for African-American families, this is the only place where records are kept," Ms. Lindsay said. "So much of black history has been destroyed. We make sure it is not forgotten."

Recently, Ms. Lindsay began exploring her own genealogy. Her father's family, she learned, came to New York from Barbados. Her mother's side — the Thompson family history — has a more tangled tale. One line of ancestors descended from slaves; the other, she found, had helped settle Jamestown. Given their relatively light skin, the Thompsons had always presumed that they had some white lineage, but Ms. Lindsay found meaning in the confirmation.

"Even with their light skin, our family never chose to pass," she said. "We stayed a part of the black community."

One afternoon, Ms. Thompson-Simmons delicately turned to the opening page of a book tucked deep in the mountain of records. She traced her fingers along the crinkled page until she came across a name: Laura White — the first death logged at Woodward. Ms. White, 18, died on March 12, 1923, of unknown causes. Her funeral took place five days later, at 4 in the afternoon. It cost $110. An itinerant in the early part of the Great Migration, she had moved to Brooklyn from North Carolina only six months earlier.

"Every one of these entries tells a story," Ms. Thompson-Simmons said. "I love that we have this history to tell. When there's a record, we can't be forgotten."

Leafing through the threadbare volumes, she observed that every era seemed marked by different modes of death. The early days of Woodward were riddled with infant funerals: Ernest Neal Jr., 4 months old, buried April 24, 1923; Walter Prescott, 18 months, buried Jan. 27, 1924. In the 1940s and ’50s, the records ran deep with the names of soldiers; Odell Oeveus, a sailor, died at 59.

Records from the 1980s recount a particularly grim chapter in Brooklyn's history. Just as the Thompson sisters were entering the industry, Woodward saw a surge of deaths caused by crack, AIDS and murder. Among them was Anthony St. Cyr, shot in the chest at 40 years old. An immigrant from the West Indies, he found work in Brooklyn as a barber. His velvet-lined coffin was escorted to a burial at Evergreens Cemetery by a six-limousine procession.

In the worst of that era, Woodward dealt with as many as 30 deaths each week. These days, that figure is from 15 to 20. Diabetes, cancer and high blood pressure make up the bulk of those fatalities, and yet violent deaths endure — nearly one each week, Ms. Thompson-Simmons estimated.

On a cool Saturday morning in March, hundreds of mourners converged on 1 Troy Avenue to celebrate the life of A’mani Miller, whose case remains unsolved. Woodward can accommodate two services at once, but Mr. Miller commanded a crowd large enough to fill both of the funeral home's chapels, as well as the lobby and a stretch of sidewalk outside. Family members proceeded into the main chapel holding electric candles, to the tune of "Take Me to the King." Charisse Mills, a singer, began the ceremony with a rendition of "Ave Maria," the same song that played right before Mr. Miller had walked his mother, Ms. Shinn, down the aisle at her wedding.

Ms. Shinn could not bring herself to speak before the audience, fixing her gaze instead on her son's supine profile as pastors, poets, friends and relatives paid tribute. When the time came for a last viewing, Ms. Shinn approached the front of the line with trepidation. The women of Woodward had restored Mr. Miller enough for an open coffin, but kept him guarded behind a burgundy velvet rope to protect his delicate remains from the mourners’ hands. For Ms. Shinn, they lifted the rope.

Guests quieted to a hush as she neared the baby blue-colored coffin. There was her son, dressed in a navy suit, white shirt and gray tie, his cap covering the hideous scars that even the Thompsons could not erase. "He had all these dreams," she said later. "Big dreams: to run hotels, to make music, to model, to have a family." After a final glance, she walked into the daylight, followed by the crowd.

Later that week, alone in her office, Ms. Thompson-Simmons's thoughts turned to her daughter Nicole, who is nearly the same age as Mr. Miller — a connection she could not shake.

"As a mother, I can't imagine something worse," Ms. Thompson-Simmons said. "What pains me about A’mani versus everyone else is that someone didn't just kill him, they tried to wipe out his memory and his soul."

Then, composing herself, she pulled Woodward's most recent file off a shelf and began to write.

"A’mani Miller, 23 years old."

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