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Unity funeral home new york city12/2/2023 ![]() There was so much damage to the body from the gunfire that I didn’t think it appropriate for anyone other than myself or the staff to see.” “Several of the Muslim brothers wanted to remove Malcolm’s suit and put (traditional burial garments) on him,” Hall said in a 1982 interview with about…time magazine. For Hall, the assignment was difficult in more ways than one.įrom a physical perspective, the Muslim leader’s body had been torn up by bullets - a dozen wounds from the initial shotgun blast that killed him, then many more from a flurry of handgun shots. Malcolm X’s killing at the hands of his former Nation of Islam acolytes was shocking but not surprising his house had been firebombed a few weeks earlier. 21, 1965, Malcolm X himself would receive one of the most memorable funerals Harlem had ever seen. Among the notable Harlemites to mourn there was Malcolm X, who conducted services at Unity on several occasions for Black Muslims. Unity quickly gained a strong reputation. Powell, publisher of the Amsterdam News, a Black New York newspaper, and one of the most successful Black entrepreneurs of his era. Unity had been founded a few years earlier by C.B. Hall graduated in 1956 and took a job at Unity Funeral Home, a Black establishment on Eighth Avenue in Harlem. In that role, Hall met Marilyn Monroe and Thurgood Marshall, among others. While studying he worked as a driver for Giovanni Buitoni, the millionaire president of the eponymous pasta maker. He took it north to the New York School of Embalming and Restorative Arts. His career was enabled by a moment of fortune: a college scholarship from an anonymous donor the year he graduated high school. “There’s a certain type of reverence around the lives of the people in our village, and there’s a respect and a dignity that goes around the preparation of your loved one and their final disposition.”īlack children’s professional aspirations meant little in rural Florida when Hall was growing up. “It’s about care and respect for the people we know, our families,” said Linda Thornton Hillery, a longtime friend whom Hall trained as a mortician in Rochester. ![]() That was particularly true in the Jim Crow South, where Black families could not depend on white churches, funeral homes or cemeteries to handle their loved ones’ bodies with respect - or at all. To some, morticians’ work seems ghoulish, but their importance is indisputable at the time of need. “It’s crazy, but that’s what he wanted to do.” “Chickens, frogs, whatever died, he buried it and he had a little funeral service for it,” Singletary said. ![]() Instead, Hall said simply, he’d just always wanted to be a funeral director. (Provided photo - Rochester Democrat & Chronicle) To order a reproduction or to inquire about permission to publish, please contact the Archives Research Center at: With the web URL or handle identification number.Joseph Hall’s funeral Home on West Main Street in downtown Rochester. Woodruff Library, and/or the copyright holder as appropriate. Woodruff Library acknowledges the generous support of the Joseph & Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice and Human Rights, the Joseph Echols Lowery Irrevocable Trust, and other donors in supporting the processing and digitization of Morehouse College's Joseph Echols and Evelyn Gibson Lowery Collection.Īll works in this collection either are protected by copyright and/or are the property of the Robert W. The Joseph Echols and Evelyn Gibson Lowery CollectionĪtlanta University Center Robert W. As precautionary measure police searched all packages being carried by persons entering the chapel. 24, for entry to the Unity Funeral Chapel where slain Muslim Leader Malcolm X is laid out. WAITING TO PAY THEIR RESPECTS - Standees wait behind police barricades at 126th Street and Eighth Avenue in New York, Feb. People Waiting To Attend Malcolm X's Funeral, February 24, 1965Ī crowd of people are shown lined up outside of Unity Funeral Chapel waiting to attend Malcolm X's funeral in New York City. ![]()
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