Black Funerals Are a Radical Testament to Blackness
For African Americans, homegoings are the ultimate form of liberation.
The funerals—or homegoing celebrations, as they’re called in many Black communities—of Aretha Franklin and hip-hop artist Nipsey Hussle garnered millions of views from people across the globe on live television and viral online videos. They gave the world a glimpse of a tradition and ritual that until recently has mostly been witnessed from within African American communities.
Whether held at a small storefront church or one that seats thousands, as in Franklin’s, or at a stadium, as in Hussle’s, some things are constant: On display are flower-filled altars as the backdrop of the neatly casketed loved one, tear-jerking slideshows, the belting of Negro spirituals, odes to ancestors, sometimes West Africa...