Black Funeral Directors Concerned Over Corporate Takeover By Michael Dabney Associated Press Writer Published: Jan 9, 2002 PHILADELPHIA (AP) - At one time, blacks turned to their own community when it came to the most critical times of life. They were often born at home with the help of black doctors or midwives, married in black churches, and buried by black undertakers, often in black cemeteries. Integration changed much of that, leaving two mainstays of the community: black churches and funeral homes. But some black funeral directors fear that this, too, is changing, with large, mostly white-run businesses buying out black-owned funeral homes. "Funeral homes is one of the last businesses African-Americans have," said Greg Burrell, owner of the Terry Funeral Home in West Philadelphia. The vast majority of blacks are still buried by black funeral directors, and few whites, unless they married into black families, are buried by blacks, industry officials said. "This business is still very segregated," said Sharon Seay, executive director of the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, an industry group that represents roughly 2,300 black funeral homes, or about 12 percent of the total. That is down from more than 2,500 some 10 years ago, a drop due in part to acquisitions. Lisa Tucker, a mortician at Yarborough & Rose Funeral Home and president of the Quaker State Funeral Directors Association, a coalition of black funeral directors in Pennsylvania, said corporate acquisitions threaten a way of life. "The African-American funeral home is passed down - it's a generational thing," Tucker said. Moreover, some independent owners say, the personal touch black funeral homes offer is lost when the larger companies move in. "Their focus is wrong," Burrell said. "Everyone is in business to make money, but with the conglomerate, it is the primary focus. They forget all about the families." The average black funeral home does between 500 and 1,000 funerals a year and, if sold, would fetch between $1 million and $2 million, Seay said. In most cases, the former owner and employees are kept on for several years to offer continuity. Most black owners sell because they are getting older and do not have a family member to take over, Tucker said. Seay's organization is urging owners to at least keep the businesses in the black community: "If you have to sell and want to sell, consider who you are selling it to." The nation's largest funeral home owner is Houston-based Service Corporation International, which owns roughly 7 percent of all the funeral homes in the country but conducts about 14 percent of the nation's burials. Currently, the company has halted its acquisition of small independent homes and is focusing on managing the 1,350 it has, said Terry Hemeyer, an SCI spokesman. "We look at the market and we look at which markets are growing," Hemeyer said. "We do not track statistics as to race. We don't have an African-American division of SCI. We don't do that." Loewen Group Inc. of Toronto has nearly 900 funeral homes and 318 cemeteries in North America and has scaled back it acquisition program. After years of aggressive acquisitions, Loewen is now trying to restructure in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. There are a number of small, but growing, black companies acquiring black-owned funeral homes. "We don't have a desire to run black businesses out of business," said Slivy Edmonds Cotton, president of Perpetua, a 4-year-old black company based in Tucson, Ariz. "We want to be an alternative." Applying sound business practices while still maintaining a personal touch is possible, she said. "They are not mutually exclusive," Cotton said. "Our goal is to have a balance.