Where to Learn More |
On This Page |
|
The rise in do-it-yourself home funerals and green burial has spurred the formation of organizations that have developed materials to help educate the public and professionals whose roles in funeral service are changing. The media has also increased its coverage in newspapers, TV reporting, and magazines, both in print and online. Each organization's websites list resource pages with extensive links to these home funeral articles, videos, and podcasts.
|
|
Books
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Organizations
Funeral Consumers Alliance provides information on creative ways to respectfully care for the dead without going into debt.
National Home Funeral Alliance empowers families to care for their own dead through education.
National End-of Life Doula Alliance inspires positive, creative change in American death practices by creating high standards, ethical and practical guidelines, and rich networking opportunities for all EOLDs, resulting in meaningful experiences for the dying, their caregivers, and the agencies involved.
Green Burial Council inspires and advocates for environmentally sustainable, natural death care through education and certification.
Celebrant Institute and Foundation pioneers the widespread use of relevant, customized ceremonies to honor the fullness of the human experience.
National Home Funeral Alliance empowers families to care for their own dead through education.
National End-of Life Doula Alliance inspires positive, creative change in American death practices by creating high standards, ethical and practical guidelines, and rich networking opportunities for all EOLDs, resulting in meaningful experiences for the dying, their caregivers, and the agencies involved.
Green Burial Council inspires and advocates for environmentally sustainable, natural death care through education and certification.
Celebrant Institute and Foundation pioneers the widespread use of relevant, customized ceremonies to honor the fullness of the human experience.
Media Featuring OregonFuneral.org and Our Contributors
- DIY funerals: Your family can be your own funeral director, if you want, by Tom Banse, NW News Network: Regional Public Journalism, 12/16/21
- Coming Home: Keelia Carver and her husband, Blaine, brought their son Max home to be buried in the cemetery on the family’s ranch (with resource links) by Lori Russell, Ruralite, 9/1/21.
- Family-Directed Funeral Options: Rights & Resources video of presentation by Keelia Carver & Holly Pruett hosted by Lumina Hospice
- Shaniko mom fights for Oregonians' rights to care for their own dead by Teresa Jackson, The Madras Pioneer, 12/11/19
- Her response to the very worst thing by Kevin Miller, The OregonStater, Winter Issue 2020
- When her 4 year old son died, she wanted a home funeral, by Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick, USA Today, reprint 12/8/19
- "View: Not Taking No for an Answer," Editorial, The Register-Guard, 11/25/19 Download the PDF of this editorial
- Saying Goodbye Your Way, by Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick, featuring Keelia Carver, The Register Guard, 11/17/19 Download the PDF of this article here
- “Oregon Funeral Resources & Education: Helpful Information and guidance during loss of a family member,” WamPinRock News, November 2019
- Advocating for Home Funerals Think Out Loud, PBS radio interview with Holly Pruett and Keelia Carver, Oregon Public Broadcasting, 10/15/19
- An Interview with Keelia Carver and Holly Pruett hosted by Erin Yanke, KBOO Evening News, 9/30/19
- DIY Death a 5 minute video featuring David’s home funeral. (Read his story here.)
- Mourning Marcy Westlering, a 5 minute slideshow depicting Marcy’s dying, home funeral, and green burial. (Read Marcy’s story here.)
- Doing Death Your Own Way, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud, 10/19/15 (24 minute audio segment)
- Ritual & Ceremony in Public Spaces, The Intertwine’s Outside Voice, 12/6/16
Resources Addressing the Impact of Racism on Deathcare
Resource Collections & Organizations
Videos, Documentaries & Podcasts
Articles & Blogs
Books
- The Collective for Radical Death Studies is an international, professional organization formed to decolonize Death Studies and radicalize death practice.
- Reimagine’s Resources for Racial Equity: Reimagine: Life, Loss, and Love is committed to providing guidance, resources and support for those affected by COVID-19, race-based violence and all those facing end of life.
- National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, Inc., has been active in several iterations since 1926, when it was named the Progressive National Funeral Directors Association, later merging with the National Colored Undertakers Association and the independent National Funeral Directors Association to become the National Negro Funeral Directors Association. The current name was adopted in 1957.
Videos, Documentaries & Podcasts
- Corona Virus Ripped a Hole in NYC's Black Community by Yousur Al-Hlou and Oma DeKornfeld, The New York Times, 6/14/20
- Why Are Black and White Funeral Homes STILL Separate? “Ask a Mortician” episode featuring Dr. Kami Fletcher, 4/20
- How the Bad Blood Started: In the United States, racial health disparities have been as foundational as democracy itself, 1619 Podcast, The New York Times, 9/13/19
- How historic and present-day death rituals and funeral practices in the Black community serve as acts of resistance Interview with Dr. Kami Fletcher on Grief Out Loud: The Dougy Center’s podcast (episode 156)
- Why African-American seniors are less likely to use hospice, PBS NewsHour, 5/5/15
- Homegoings: Going Home, PBS POV documentary 6/25/13
Articles & Blogs
- 7 Elements of African American Mourning Practices & Burial Traditions by Dr. Kami Fletcher, TalkDeath.com, 2/8/21
- How Death Doulas Have Adapted End-of-Life Care Amid COVID-19 (includes discussion of the role of doulas in helping clients to navigate racism in the healthcare system) by Ilana Kaplan, Vogue, 7/30/20
- How do you foster ‘a good death in a racist society’? by Chace Beech, Los Angeles Times, 6/25/20
- Is Death Really “The Great Equalizer?” African American Deathways and Inequality in America Interview with Dr. Kami Fletcher, Seven Ponds, 5/20
- African-American Funeral Directors Feeling Stress of Coronavirus Deaths by Ed Stannard, New Haven Register, 4/20/20
- Black Funeral Food Traditions Are an Essential Part of Grieving by Nneka M. Okona, Shondaland, 7/25/19
- How Death Doulas Ease the Final Transition by Cynthia Greenlee (includes discussion of the role of doulas in helping clients to navigate racism in deathcare), Yes Magazine, Fall 2019
- Black Funerals Are a Radical Testament to Blackness: For African Americans, homegoings are the ultimate form of liberation by Ida Harris, Yes Magazine, Fall 2019
- Grave Matters: Segregation and Racism in U.S. Cemeteries by David Sherman, Order of the Good Death (includes an extensive list of citations), 2019
- Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades by Matt Sakakeeny, Parish 64/Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2018
- Race & The Funeral Profession: What Jessica Mitford Missed by Dr. Kami Fletcher, TalkDeath, 12/18
- 5 Reasons Why African Americans Are Less Likely to Choose Hospice by Christopher Adrien, 5/12/17
- Homegoings: A Black American Funeral Tradition by Jakarta K. Griffin, Anthropological Perspectives on Death, 4/23/17
- Who Gets to Have a Good Death? by Tessa Love, The Establishment, 9/28/17
- The Disappearance of a Distinctively Black Way to Mourn by Tiffany Stanley, The Atlantic, 1/26/16
- African-American woman hopes to break down racial barrier in funeral home business by Doug Moore, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2/15/15
- Material Culture and Social Death: Africa-American Burial Practices by Ross W. Jamieson, JSTOR, 1995
Books
- Til Death Do Us Part : American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed edited by Allan Amanik and Dr. Kami Fletcher
- Passed On: African American Mourning Stories by Karla FC Holloway
- This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust
- To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death by Suzanne E. Smith
- African American Grief by Paul C. Rosenblatt and Beverly R. Wallace
- African American Historic Burial Grounds and Gravesites in New England by Glenn A. Knoblock
