MULLINS, SC (AP) – After the funeral procession left and the funeral director Shawn Troy was left in the middle of the rocks, he cried to himself.
For 50 years, the final words of a mass funeral in this 4,400-strong town had been delivered by their father, William Penn Troy Sr. Now Chief Troy was gone, one of the leading black researchers who said the plague had affected many African Americans, months after his funeral.
And when Shawn Troy went on to speak on behalf of someone more prominent than his career – in his political career and in the promotion of his black citizens – his lack of self-esteem felt overwhelming. Not only his family, but also his community, lost anchor.
“I went to his grave and I could hear him talking to me,” said Shawn Troy, whose voice resonates as he remembers kneeling next to the plot last September, climbing a little closer to two palm trees. And he said, Ye have heard. You can do it. This is what you were arrested for. ‘He gave me the stick, so I have to run. ”
He is not alone. Since the epidemic, about 130 black soldiers have died from COVID-19, according to the agency representing them.
The death of funeral attendants has not been closely monitored. But the National Funeral Directors Association, which represents many companies, said it had not seen a similar increase in COVID deaths among its members.
The deaths of black black scholars are well known especially because of the popular role they have played in the past in many places. They are often admired for their business acumen, many are selected to be politicians, serve as local power brokers, and help pay for human rights.
At the same time, the “going home” activities they are organizing have become like connecting stones, life-related events such as death, which mourn the mourners as well as demonstrations, preaching and singing.
Black funerals are “a lot of fun, and that’s not disrespectful to my friends all over the country. We’re more, I must say, we’re in a relationship,” said Hari P. Close, President of the National Funeral Directors & Morticians Association and the director of the Baltimore Funeral Home . This alliance represents black healers.
When the plague hits, close proximity to a celebration that distinguishes black funerals puts bodyguards at risk, says Close.
Their deaths have left heirs in some lands struggling to fulfill their responsibilities.
“It’s really helped … especially in African American cemeteries,” he said.
The death toll comes even though pilots have taken precautionary measures to protect themselves from the virus with limited limits on the size and size of cemetery meetings to prevent the spread of the virus.
“This year was different from any other year I’ve been to a funeral,” said Edith Churchman, the fourth generation of a mortuary in Newark, NJ that sells large numbers of black people.
In response to the death threats of COVID, initially with limited self-defense equipment, and later with a shortage of baskets and funeral parlors, he forced funeral parlors to meet the prevalence of the AIDS epidemic, he said.
“We were exploding with COVID bodies,” said Drs. Mary Gaffney, who replaced her brother Jeremiah, in Inwood, New York after he died of the virus last May.
At least 95,000 Americans have died of COVID, according to an AP study from the National Center for Health Statistics, on an international scale in the US
Changing the figures to calculate age differences shows that blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are twice as likely to die from the virus as whites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Obviously … you fear for your safety,” Churchman said. “You ‘re tended to the abyss, so what do you do?”
In Mississippi, Luzern “Sonny” Dillon and his cemetery staff worked for months to implement COVID security measures, banning meetings. But Dillon, a former councilor, continued his habit of socializing with the community.
“People are like, ‘You know, Sonny,’ and they just hang out and share things. It was like it was given, “says his wife, Georgia Dillon.
In one of these discussions, earlier this year, a restaurant manager told Dillon that he had died with his three siblings and COVID in a few weeks. The morgue reassured the man that, contrary to popular opinion, the plague was real. Those words proved true.
A few weeks later, a cemetery worker was diagnosed with the virus, and then all of Dillon’s.
“So maybe I can’t leave here, this is what I want you all to do,” Sonny Dillon told his wife from a hospital bed in March. She died a few weeks later at the age of 72.
Georgia Dillon, a nurse, had long helped to bring money into the business. But their husbands were uninspired comforters and they and other relatives struggled to keep the funeral homes, in McComb and Tylertown, running away in his absence.
But it didn’t accomplish much of what Sonny Dillon did to survive. In his 20s, he was one of the first black nominees. Later, he worked with the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.to name a boulevard of a murdered dictator. He demanded that more black citizens vote.
Dillon’s role is in line with what is happening in many African American clubs, where archaeologists have long been known, says Suzanne E. Smith, a professor at George Mason University who authored a book on the black funeral business.
Well-known are the Ford family of Memphis, Tennessee, funeral directors who sent a father and son to Congress. In Detroit, the funeral director of Charles Diggs Sr. was a state legislature before their son took office in Washington and helped secure the Congressional Black Caucus.
In cities all over the south, funeral directors often offer limousines to visit business leaders when they arrive for meetings.
“There are all these things going on in the (Black) funeral homes that are not about burying the dead, but helping the living,” Smith said.
By the end of the summer, Georgia Dillon was planning to hand over the business to his daughter and daughter-in-law. Working with the funeral home staff, the couple decided to keep the business the way Sonny Dillon would run.
“We talk and we cry, and we try to encourage one another. We tell each other that we must preserve his legacy, “he said.
In New York, Gaffney is trying to do the same, but years later from the funeral business.
In the first months of the epidemic, Gaffney said he warned his brother, who had many other ailments, to isolate himself and allow cemetery workers to care for the bodies of the dead. But it was not his nature.
The funeral home, founded by Gaffneys’ parents in the early 1970’s, had already served many African families in the suburbs near John F. Kennedy International Airport.
But Jeremiah, who enjoys socializing with his father, a retired army officer, worked to encourage the clients, speaking French to other families and hiring Spanish- and African-speaking speakers.
“In the mortuary business you have to be in the area,” said Mary Gaffney. “That was his thing. He was the root of grass. He never met a stranger.”
While Jeremiah Gaffney ran a family business, Mary Gaffney studied medicine, and developed a habit in Charlotte, North Carolina. When her brother fell ill over the weekend of Easter 2020 and was found to have COVID, she tried to take care of him. But a few weeks after his death at the age of 65, he met Mary Gaffney in a very special way.
With increasing deaths, he rented a refrigerated caravan to carry more supplies. In the New York City area near the cemetery, COVID has killed more than 500 people, doubling the city’s population.
“I don’t think it was too late. ” .
But he refused to sell, feeling that this would reflect the legacy of his parents and grandparents who had paid for his adoption. And she has accepted a job her brother once did as a business face, making phone calls from grieving families on a regular basis. Just finishing a year without his brother telling him what to do is like finishing the line, he said.
“We’ll see what the future holds,” says Gaffney, who hopes his young relatives will eventually have the opportunity to do business. “Undoubtedly, this was an inspiring trip.”
Troy, from South Carolina, faced some setbacks, taking over the planting business his father started in 1973 after working with him for many years.
“What about my dad and I was, we woke up together, we came to work together and then I went home and ate together and spent the night,” he said.
The Troys agreed that Shawn would take over the business over the next few years. But she hopes to do so with the advice of her father. The death toll from Troy’s elders continues to plague the church.
For many years, Elder Troy, also known as Penn, had served as Commissioner, County Board, and Church Treasurer. But that was just his official work.
“If my mother did not have enough to eat, she would help us. When you talk about Mr.
Penn Troy uses jokes and jokes to help people do better, says Cynthia Leggette, a school board member and former colleague.
After officials voted to close the school due to a shortage of enrollment, Troy forced it to become a science and technology school that attracted more students, he said. Realizing that the citizen committee that wanted the school to run was very clean, Troy phoned which brought in black parents.
“Growing up in the 60s, Penn knew his challenges,” Legette said. “They tell me, ‘Cynthia, we are blessed … so it is up to us to light the torch and light the path for our children.’
In recognition, officials recently gathered under a tent on the Edge of Mullins to name the US 76’s William Penn Troy Highway. As they crossed the street, a digital sign posted to the receptionist said: “To Protect Us, Please Wear a T-shirt.”
Last summer, all Troys were found and hospitalized by COVID. Elder Troy did not return home. And two weeks after her father was buried, Shawn Troy conducted the first funeral without her.
The first few months were tough. Penn Troy’s influence gave life to a dead business. Shawn Troy had worked in secret. He recently turned down an invitation to take part in a development project, meanwhile, choosing to focus on his new job.
Standing in prayer shortly before the funeral, he greeted the mourners by name, placing his hand on several shoulders.
“Are you all right?” He asked from behind his mask. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
But a repeated return to run the funeral procession at the grave where his father was buried is a constant reminder that he is doing this alone.
As the sun was about to set, Troy set up several stone blocks, planting small flags in the empty space to bury the next morning. At a distance of about 50 feet[50 m]it casts a shadow over his father’s tomb.
He said: “I do not think I will ever get over it. “But I will persevere.”
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Associated Press reporters Allen G. Breed and Angeliki Kastanis contributed to the story.