At funeral, Black America’s grief is put on public display yet again
MEMPHIS, TENN. >> The sound of the djembe drums started as a low tremble and grew more distinct as the musicians drew closer to the hundreds gathered inside the Memphis church.
“We love you, Tyre,” the drummers chanted, referring to Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man whose beating by five police officers led to his death and this funeral on the first day of Black History Month.
By the time the procession reached Nichols’ black casket draped in a large white bouquet, the congregation in the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church was on its feet shouting the chant in unison. Some raised clenched fists. Others let out screams of grief. Many grabbed tissues to dab at tears. All of it streamed live on television.
The funeral on Wednesday
had all the hallmarks of what’s known as a homegoing service in Black American communities: comforting gospel hymns, remembrances from loved ones and a stirring eulogy from a clergyman.
But in addition to offering an outlet for the private mourning of Nichols’ family and friends, this ritual was also public and political. It was a venue to air the shared grief of Black Americans — and to once again call for leaders to address an epidemic of police violence so that this time might be different.
“As we celebrate Tyre’s life and comfort this family, we serve notice to this nation that the rerun of this episode that makes Black lives hashtags has been canceled and will not be renewed for another season,” said the Rev. J. Lawrence Turner, senior pastor of the church.
“We have come and we shall overcome,” he said.
will be staffed by the Lowell Police and Lowell Fire EMS. According to a press release from the city, no smoking is allowed within 50 feet of the Senior Center and all center rules and regulations apply while the warming station is active.
For those ages 60 and older who are looking to combat the cold, the town of Billerica announced the Billerica Council on Aging, located at 25 Concord Road, will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday.
Officials in Nashua, N.H. also announced resources for the homeless, including a few locations in their city that will be open for warming and sheltering:
of Pennsylvania Dutch folklore, which helped give birth to the Groundhog Day tradition, that region has several on the job, including
community.
Kelley also said that instead of transporting what he called “psychiatric calls” to hospital emergency departments, then transporting them to in-patient psychiatric facilities far from their home location, the new guidance calls for the company to transport these patients to a community behavioral health center.
The CBHC’S are designed to help residents access behavioral health services, reduce reliance on emergency rooms for mental health services and increase the availability of these services in the community.
Kelley said the city has at least three trucks on call at any time, with the vehicles staging from Chelmsford and Westford streets near downtown, Aiken Street and VFW Highway in Centralville and Callery Park in
Such funeral services are one part heartfelt tribute and one part civil rights rally — a symbolic tax Black Americans have paid time and again from Emmett Till and George Floyd to those killed in mass shootings by white supremacists in Charleston and Buffalo.
“Grieving has many forms — the form that it’s taken for African Americans, historically and even today, is that the grieving process for us is not silent,” said W. Franklyn Richardson, chairman of The Conference of National Black Churches, a public policy and social justice organization that represents predominantly Black Christian denominations.
“Part of the way you get healed is to do something about what has happened to your loved one unfairly,” he said. “You have the opportunity, while you have the attention, to try to participate in getting justice.”
• Crisis Assessment & Referral, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, contact 844-800-9911• 211 NH Homeless Resources, available 24/7, dial 2-11• Greater Nashua Mental Health, contact 603889-6147• Harbor Care, contact 603-882-3616• Nashua City Welfare, 18 Mulberry St., open from 8:30 a.m. to noon and 1-4 p.m. Monday to Friday, contact 603-589-4555• Saint Patrick’s Church Day Café, 29 Spring St., open from 7-9:30 a.m. Monday to Friday• Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter, which includes a winter overflow shelter, 2 Quincy St., contact 603-889-7770• Southern
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the Highlands.
That emergency aid is backstopped by members of the Lowell Fire Department, whom Kelley called “fantastic clinicians.”
“Even if it takes us longer to get there then we like, the patients for those critical (cases) — chest pains, shortness of breath, cardiac arrest, overdose — they’re getting good quality care right away because the fire department is usually right there within three to four minutes,” he said.
The board’s COVD-19 update from the Public Health Nursing Division showed 533 confirmed cases as compared to at least 2,000 cases this time last year. Widespread testing programs have largely ceased, making comparisons difficult to assess, but Keegan reminded the viewing public that free COVID
Not all victims’ families welcome the attention. Some will put limits on the number of journalists and cameras allowed into the funeral, or ask that media be prohibited from the service altogether.
But the public is rarely shut out, and funerals for Black victims of brutality and racist violence typically draw people who did not personally know the victim — from the community where the violence occurred and from across the U.S.
Shirley Anderson, a lifelong resident of Memphis, said she had been grieving over Nichols since his death on Jan. 10, three days after a traffic stop by a now-disbanded police unit. Video released of the stop shows Black officers holding Nichols down and repeatedly punching him, kicking him and striking him with batons as he screamed for his mother. Five officers have been charged with murder.
NH Rescue Mission, with single male shelter at 40 Chestnut St. and a single female shelter at 36 Tolles St.• Nashua Public Library, 2 Court St., open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and 1-4 p.m. Sunday• HEARTS Peer Support, 5 Pine St., Ext. 1G, open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, contact 603-8828400• Stepping Stones Youth Drop-in Center, 3 Pine St. Ext. L, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday, contact 603-787-3016
The Townsend Police Department put out a press release offering safety tips to
This year, the current mayor didn’t attend. BUCKEYE CHUCK, OHIO >> Another Chuck, this one further inland. This year, according
vaccines were still available.
“The public can still get their COVID vaccine or their flu vaccine on Tuesdays at the Health Department from 4 to 7 p.m.,” she said during the public meeting, which was broadcast on Lowell Telemedia Center for the first time in more than a year. “To make an appointment, call 978970-4010.”
A November report from MASSDEP confirmed elevated lead levels in the second-floor hallway bubbler of Immaculate Conception School at 218 East Merrimack St., which Keegan said had been shut off since 2016.
“The health director last month was asked to follow up on the lead levels in the water,” Keegan said. “The principal has responded that these bubblers have