In an episode called “The Auction,”<\/a> Claire Huxtable wins the painting at an auction, paying $11,000 for it. She says that the painting was made by her “great-uncle Ellis.” According to the storyline, it was sold to pay her grandmother\u2019s medical expenses.<\/p>\nAt the end of the episode, her husband, Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, hangs the painting over their mantle, and the painting remained there for the rest of the eight-season series.<\/p>\n
In real life, Ellis reportedly never received more than $300 for a painting. He, however, made a name for himself by exhibiting his work during the Harlem Renaissance period and beyond. The \u201cFuneral Procession,” completed in 1950, is owned by Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana ,and is part of the Aaron Douglas Collection at the Amistad<\/p>\n
My ex had received a very good reproduction of \u201cThe Funeral Procession\u201d as a gift from his sister. He hung it on the wall at the end of the staircase and forgot about it. I, however, looked at it endlessly thinking about\u00a0the traditions, such as the\u00a0funeral procession that over the decades has endured as the \u201cBlack experience\u201d on these shores\u00a0has\u00a0evolved\u00a0and\u00a0changed.<\/p>\n
Our death rituals however continue to connect Blacks in America across\u00a0regions,\u00a0dialects, ethnicities, education levels\u00a0and\u00a0incomes.<\/p>\n
The pageantry and ceremony of our funerals has always been important because it provided dignity to the lives of Black Americans that often wasn\u2019t afforded to them when they were\u00a0upright and breathing.<\/p>\n
The dead person because of his humble job and lack of prestigious accomplishments, in life may have been written off as a nobody, someone not worth mentioning\u00a0except in\u00a0passing.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you hear that Joe the janitor died? \u201cThat\u2019s so sad.\u201d \u2018I think he\u2019d worked here for 30 years.\u201d \u201cWow, they\u2019ll need to hire someone soon to keep the bathrooms clean.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe funeral however is a final opportunity for Joe\u2019s community to show up. They know his full name, his family, his challenges and his triumphs. The mourners silently or wrought with pain testify that Joe\u2019s life mattered, he had value and that he was loved.<\/p>\n
Like many African diasporaric affairs, the funeral combines the sacred and secular. It\u2019s a gathering of family and friends who come together not only to grieve the transition of their loved one but also to reminisce, eat\u00a0delicious\u00a0food, possibly drink some liquor and celebrate\u00a0life.<\/p>\n
The Louisiana funeral parade with its third line is the most exuberant funeral procession but the repast that follows Black funerals are often low-key family reunions, where the Electric Slide and singing may break out\u00a0any\u00a0minute.<\/p>\n
I was 8 or 9 years old when I went to my first funeral. My great- grandmother \u201cMama\u201d had died\u00a0at\u00a0the\u00a0age\u00a0of\u00a098. Her husband had long been dead and all but one of her seven children had migrated from South Carolina to Northern\u00a0cities. Although Mama died in New York City there was no question that she would be buried in her hometown\u00a0in\u00a0South\u00a0Carolina.<\/p>\n
My clan bought out an entire Amtrak car and traveled South to give Mama her homegoing service. We arrived at a whistle stop station in a town outside of Columbia in the dead of night. The next morning, part one of the funeral procession to the church began.<\/p>\n
My grandmother and her siblings rode in the family car and the rest of us got into the cars of extended family members and each car followed the other\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0little country church.<\/p>\n
As we traveled down the narrow, dusty roads people waved and a few men took off their floppy hats\u00a0that\u00a0were\u00a0protecting\u00a0their\u00a0heads\u00a0heads the sun. The news had spread in the hamlet that\u00a0today a native daughter was being laid\u00a0to rest.<\/p>\n
When we reached the tiny wooden church, we all got out of our cars and solemnly filed in, one family walking behind the other. No words or instructions were needed. We all instinctively knew the drill.<\/p>\n
More than twenty years later, I went to another funeral and the scene\u00a0was eerily\u00a0similar. This time it was my college friends with our partners, spouses and kids driving from Washington, DC to a small town in Virginia to bury our girlfriend \u2019s husband. He had died of cancer in the prime of his life leaving her behind and\u00a0their\u00a0young\u00a0daughter.<\/p>\n
There had already been a funeral service in large church in Maryland but his roots were in this small Virginia town and it\u2019s where his widowed mother still lived.<\/p>\n
Another funeral procession in another small Southern town.<\/p>\n
When we reached the church the next morning, we parked our cars in the gravel lot. Again, just as Ellis Wilson \u2019s painting depicted, silently we walked in a procession into the small church to\u00a0pay\u00a0our\u00a0respects one of our own, a\u00a0friend,\u00a0a devoted\u00a0husband and father.<\/p>\n
The twist was our girlfriend was a Brooklyn born, Caribbean-American and so were many of the people who made up the funeral procession. Looking around at the faces, it wasn\u2019t a stretch to imagine that we were walking to a\u00a0funeral being held at a rural parish church\u00a0on\u00a0some\u00a0island.<\/p>\n
Thinking about how we honor our dead I have wondered whether some ancestral\u00a0memory\u00a0kicks\u00a0in. Do these rituals survive because they are ingrained in our DNA or do we keep them alive because we desire to have a way to remember who we\u2019ve been and who we are?<\/p>\n
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Image<\/em>:<\/p>\n\u201cFuneral Procession” (Circa 1950). Artist, Ellis Wilson (1899-1977). Oil on Masonite, 30-1\/2 x 29-1\/4<\/p>\n
P.S. To see our latest art postings by Black artists representing the African diaspora, join over 22,000 art lovers and follow us on Instagram at @shelovesblackart<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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