‘All the love they gave us’
As Black funeral homes shut their doors, Garland Brothers in Albany is a rare necessity
Germaine Farilien stepped back from his uncle in Garland Bros. Funeral Home in awe.
In his white casket and white firefighter’s dress uniform, Dary Taylor looked sharp. Even more, he looked like himself.
Farilien turned to his cousin and Taylor’s daughter, Amber Taylor. He wants to get his uncle’s worn deck of cards, he said, the one Dary used to play — and win at — spades for hours at a time, and have the family sign the cards to be buried with Dary. The suggestion moved Amber to tears — until Garland Brothers’ manager, the Rev. Thomas House, told her he, too, is a spades fanatic, holding up his iphone to show her the app as proof.
“See? This is how we relate,” Amber said, breaking into a belly laugh.
For nearly a century, Garland Brothers’
Funeral Home has offered a trusted service to generations of Black families in the Capital Region seeking to celebrate the lives of their deceased loved ones. One of the oldest Black funeral homes in the Northeast, Garland Brothers is becoming more and more of a rarity in the region and country.
Garland Brothers was founded by two brothers in 1929, when white-owned funeral homes did not serve Black families. In addition, many Black funeral homes played a large role in the civil rights movement, caring for Black people killed by lynchings or in protests as well as holding historic funerals for people such as Emmett Till, the teen kidnapped and murdered in the 1950s after being accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.
While the business was profitable for decades, with Ebony Magazine estimating in 1953 that 3,000 Black funeral homes made more than $120 million, there are currently around 1,500 Black funeral homes in the U.S., according to Hari Close, president of the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association. Three are located in the Capital Region: Garland Brothers, Sturges Funeral and Cremation and S.L. Mclaughlin Funeral Home.
“Albany is not that big, but we can only do so much,” said House, who has been with Garland Brothers since 1970. “There’s enough here for everybody. Families go different places for whatever reason.”
Shannon Mclaughlin ended her career as a registered nurse to open her Albany funeral home in 2018, something she says was a calling for her. Since then, she said, "it has taken off like wildfire."
In their most prosperous years, Garland Brothers held about 200 funeral services a year. That number has since dropped, with a slightly busier 2020 of almost 100 services to date — partially due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted Black communities.
As more Black funeral homes go under or are sold to mortuary conglomerates, Close points to increasing corporate competi
tion, difficulty obtaining financial resources from banks and a lack of motivation to take over family businesses as causes of the demise.
"It's a 24/7, 365 days type of commitment," Close said. "It is their total lifestyle, serving those communities. That's why you have so many generations behind not willing to participate."
Albany’s Hood Funeral Home, for example, shut its doors when the owner, Harold Hood, died in 2000 — there was no one to take over the business. As a newer business, Mclaughlin said she would love to leave a legacy one day, hoping the business will remain in her family for generations — like Garland Brothers.
But while it is corporate funeral homes in the region that create challenging competition and obstacles, Black funeral homes focus on what corporations can’t provide: their relationships with the community, bereavement services and financial flexibility.
Choosing Garland Brothers for Dary’s funeral was a nobrainer.
Not only is there a close rela
tionship with those who run the business, but there’s also a cultural connection and understanding.
“It’s music, sometimes it comes down to how people handle family, sometimes it’s food-wise,” Nel Farilien said.
Black funeral homes also offer homegoing celebrations, a tradition from the time of slavery. Slaves who wanted to return to Africa and freedom believed the only way they could do it was in death. Later on, the idea behind homegoing became going home to heaven after death. As customs evolved through the
years, however, the celebration in Black funeral services remained — something that white funeral homes did not offer.
"We're going to sing you out the right way, we're going to sing you out with a bang, we like the clapping of the hands," Mclaughlin said about her services. "We try to uplift the person and celebrate the person and life instead of sending them off in a way that's let's just cry and mourn."
By being Black, Mclaughlin said, not only are Black funeral homes more understanding of their clients' culture, but their presentation of Black clients can also be better.
"With the makeup, the coloring is off — gray and ashy looking," Mclaughlin said.
"Even our hair textures, half the time they don't know how to do our hair."
Knowing the families they work with and their backgrounds, Black funeral homes also keep in mind the financial hardships some clients may face.
Funeral services at Garland Brothers typically start at
$6,000 — the cost of Dary’s funeral.
When House meets with a new family, he presents them with a sheet of their services and respective total costs — unlike some other funeral homes that may add charges later on. The business also has a payment plan for clients, and works with families on Department of Social Services benefits to figure out how much DSS would cover. House works with the family, sometimes offering them discounts or taking off certain costs.
“I really give you something that's nice, that you can pay for and have a decent service for you,” House said.
The Taylors and Fariliens are no strangers to Garland Brothers Funeral Home. A few years ago, they turned to Garland Brothers to bury their grandma, the heart of their family.
“Some people take businesses as just businesses, they don’t have a sensitive side to it,” Amber said. “But Garland Brothers definitely do care.”
Their grandmother sang in the choir for Mount Olive Southern Missionary Baptist Church, and Garland Brothers made sure to bring the music to her service — in addition to making her look amazing, her grandchildren said. But even more, Garland Brothers spent much of the service checking on the family, making sure they were all right.
“It was all the love they gave us. It was nonstop hugs, nonstop prayers,” Nel said. “The fact that she was the glue of the family and she passed, they knew that broke us.”
Philippa Garland-wilcox, the daughter of owner Benjamin Garland and part of the business, said they personally know about 90 percent of their customers — and many, like the Fariliens and Taylors, are families they have served for generations.
“I think it's a dire need for the community,” said Lillian Garland, Philippa’s sister, who is not part of the business. “It's a little bit more comforting for a person of color that you've seen, that you know, that you played with. So it's more personable, it's more hands-on, where you can actually know the family.”
It's a 24/7, 365 days type of commitment. It is their total lifestyle, serving those communities. That's why you have so many generations behind not willing to participate." — Hari Close, president of the
National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association