New Orleans Black community’s funeral traditions amid the coronavirus pandemic captured on film
15th March 2021 · 0 Comments
By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer
Jacqueline Olive’s film, “Death is Our Business,” offers a striking snapshot of the intersectionality of death, mourning and the New Orleans Black community’s funeral traditions amid the coronavirus pandemic. The 30-minute film also exposes, through its interviewees, the racial disparities Black people have endured in a city that embraces and celebrates its cultural contributions but ignores the basic needs of the community that put New Orleans on the map.
“‘Death Is Our Business’ is a memorial to the people who have died from coronavirus,” says Olive, an award-winning and celebrated filmmaker. Variety named her as one of the Top Ten filmmakers to watch.
“The film has been a vital way for me to also explore the compounded injuries of racial inequity faced by so many who survive in New Orleans, as in many cities [in] the country,” she explains.
FRONTLINE, Firelight Media, and WORLD Channel, which co-produced the film with Olive, said the film “examines in intimate and moving detail how Black funeral homes in New Orleans have had to adapt to the devastating impact of COVID-19 in their community.”
“Death Is Our Business” airs on FRONTLINE on Tuesday, March 23, and it will also air on WORLD Channel on Wednesday, March 24.
Jackie was doing a fellowship with FRONTLINE and Firelight Media when her godmother passed away last March. Like many who’ve lost loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic, she and others close to her godmother couldn’t attend her funeral. “Death Is Our Business,” became the vehicle that helped Olive to “transition” and process her loss.
Olive knows New Orleans intimately. She began her collegiate career at Xavier University, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. After working as a cinematographer for the NBC affiliate in her hometown of Hattiesburg, Miss., she earned a master’s degree from the University of Florida, Documentary Institute.
Olive flew to New Orleans in early August 2020, a couple of weeks before The Commemorative March on Washington, and at a time when the death of George Floyd sparked a worldwide uprising against racial killings.
“New Orleans is this very complex combination of suffering and joy. Katrina forced us to think a lot about what it means to heal,” Dr. Denese Shervington, a psychiatrist, says in the film. “I think we’re having a similar experience with COVID and this pandemic. How do individuals come back from extreme loss, loss of family members, loss of what was normal? How do you find your way back?”
Dr. Shervington’s observations capture the endless loops of rebounds Black New Orleanians have had to make. Blacks comprised 53 percent of the deaths, when the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina.
Scores of Black people also died during Hurricane Betsy in 1965, when the same levees broke. Some in the Black community believe the levees were dynamited to protect the exclusive manors near the Pontchartrain lakefront and to redirect the water to the predominantly Black community in the lower Ninth Ward.
Olive’s film gives voice to funeral home directors and New Orleans Coroner Dr. Dwight McKenna, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and Xavier President Dr. Reynold Verret, among others. The film makes the case that the death numbers for Black folk is much higher.
She wanted to present how the Black community’s funeral traditions were carried forward, and how families are transitioning and what becomes of “the transition of the soul,” without the traditional cultural celebrations.
“In New Orleans, people are more rooted. Culture is a tangible thing,” Olive explains. “I wanted to look at the commonality of the funeral process and its African-American roots. The funerals are much more vibrant, the electro-color, second lines, how powerful the music is and jazz,” Olive adds.
As a grad student, Olive traveled to Ghana, where she witnessed the Africanism in New Orleans funeral traditions. “The tempo, tone, cadence of the music, ushers wearing white gloves, the Africanism in Black funerals is all around the world.”
“We are proud to share Jackie’s important and poignant reporting with our PBS audiences, and to document both the physical and emotional toll that the pandemic has had on the Black community,” says FRONTLINE Executive Producer Raney Aronson-Rath.
“We know that communities of color were hit hard by COVID and that the funeral industry in New Orleans was hit hard.”
At the time of the filming, New Orleans had the highest death rate from coronavirus in the nation. In June 2020, Black people accounted for 77 percent of coronavirus deaths, according to the coroner’s report.
“It’s beautiful,” Aronson-Rath says of the film. “It was filmed during a really hard time too. It’s really emotional.”
“It was an honor to work with Jackie on ‘Always in Season’ and now again on ‘Death Is Our Business,’ another beautiful film examining how Black communities reckon with unspeakable tragedy and injustice,” said Loira Limbal, senior vice president of programs for Firelight Media.
Olive’s debut feature documentary, “Always in Season,” examines the lingering impact of more than a century of lynching African Americans. “Always in Season” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize for Moral Urgency.
“At World Channel, we strive to bring our audiences real stories from around the world, often shining a spotlight on communities that are underrepresented in today’ s media environment,” said Chris Hastings, executive producer for WORLD Channel at GBH in Boston.
This article originally published in the March 15, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
