Global enterprise team reporter Adam Geller and his multiformat colleague Allen Breed teamed up to chronicle the toll the pandemic has taken on Black funeral directors in the U.S. Some 130 Black morticians have died since the onset of COVID-19, leaving holes not just in their families but in their communities, where they have long played a prominent role. Often admired for their success in business, a number have been elected to political office, served as local power brokers and helped fund civil rights efforts.
Geller interviewed the families of Black morticians who died, and Breed shot emotional video and photos of Mullins, South Carolina, funeral director Shawn Troy, who suddenly finds himself trying to fill his father’s shoes. The result is a powerful look at a unique toll that COVID has taken in many Black communities.
Funeral director Shawn Troy attends a lunch in honor of his late father, William Penn Troy Sr., pictured at background, in Mullins, S.C., May 22, 2021. “The thing about me and my Dad was, we woke up together, we came to work together and then went home and ate together and talked late at night,” he says.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
A photo of the late William Penn Troy Sr. stands on an easel during a ceremony in Mullins, S.C., May 22, 2021, dedicating a local road in his honor. The funeral director and local leader died of COVID-19 in August 2020, one of dozens of Black morticians to succumb during the pandemic nationally.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
A photograph of the late William Penn Troy Sr. with former President Barack Obama hangs on the wall of Troy’s office in Mullins, S.C., May 23, 2021. Over the years, Troy, a funeral director, had served as a county commissioner, local school board member and church treasurer. But his engagement with the community went beyond his official titles.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
A tin plaque marks the grave of funeral director and community leader William Penn Troy Sr. at Hillcrest Cemetery outside Mullins, S.C., May 23, 2021.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
Shawn Troy stands beside the first hearse owned by his late father, behind the family’s funeral home in Mullins, S.C., May 22, 2021.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
Shawn Troy consults on arrangements for a viewing at his family’s funeral home in Mullins, S.C., May 23, 2021. The Troy family had agreed that Shawn would take over the business in the next few years, but he had expected to do so with his father’s counsel.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
Cards promoting COVID-19 vaccination are displayed at Troy’s Funeral Home in Mullins, S.C., May 23, 2021. In the summer of 2020, both William Penn Troy Sr. and his son were diagnosed and hospitalized with COVID. The elder Troy never returned home. And two weeks after his father’s burial, Shawn Troy presided over the first funeral without him.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
Funeral director Shawn Troy comforts a mourner during a graveside service at Hillcrest Cemetery outside Mullins, S.C., May 24, 2021.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
Funeral director Shawn Troy wipes away perspiration during a graveside service at Hillcrest Cemetery outside Mullins, S.C., May 24, 2021.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed
The sun rises behind a sign dedicating part of U.S. 76 in Mullins, S.C., to the late William Penn Troy Sr., May 24, 2021. Over the years, Troy had been an influential figure in the community in addition to his work as a funeral director.
AP Photo / Allen G. Breed