The liberation of Timothy C.May.

[mattd]

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.