Service for Black NC funeral home owner Scarborough, ‘son of Durham,’ Hayti historian
J.C. “Skeepie” Scarborough loved Durham and sharing the stories of his life in the historically Black neighborhood of Hayti.
The president and chief executive officer of Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center Inc. on North Queen Street died Saturday at the age of 83. His death was unexpected, Scarborough’s wife, Queen Marable Bass Scarborough, said Wednesday.
“He knew so very many people, and so many kind phone calls have come through, folks have left messages,” Queen Scarborough said. “He was a wonderful person. It’s just a shocker for me that he’s gone, because we were so very close, and I will truly miss him.”
She continues to lead the business, the fifth oldest Black funeral home in the nation. Scarborough is survived by their children, J.C. “Scottie” Scarborough IV and Tonya Colleena Bass; five grandchildren and extended family members. Their daughter and a grandson also work at the funeral home, Queen Scarborough said.
Scarborough “exhibited talents, skills and a personality that conveyed love, caring, grace and compassion and lived his life honorably,” the family said in his obituary. “He was a kind, gentle, hard-working and humble man who served all he cared for with the utmost dedication and relentless perseverance toward excellence.”
The family will hold a visitation and viewing from noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, and noon to 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, at Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center, located at 309 N. Queen St. in Durham.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 20, at St. Joseph AME Church, 2521 Fayetteville St. in Durham. The service will be livestreamed on the church’s Facebook page and YouTube channel.
John Clarence Scarborough III was born Sept. 14, 1937, to John C. Scarborough Jr. and Hattie Strong Scarborough, according to Scarborough & Hargett. He got his nickname, Skeepie, from his grandfather, who adapted it from the great Roman general Scipio Africanus, Scalawag Magazine reported in a 2015 interview.
After briefly attending the all-Black Hillside High School, Scarborough enrolled in the Quaker-run Westtown School in Pennsylvania and the historically Black Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia.
In 1949, Scarborough was a plaintiff in the Blue vs. Durham Public School District case filed by a group of African-American parents who wanted equal funding for Black schools, former Durham City Council member Eddie Davis said. The plaintiffs won that case just a few years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, he said.
In 1960, Scarborough graduated with a bachelor’s degree from N.C. Central University and, in 1961, from Eckels College of Mortuary Science, an affiliate of Temple University.
In 1961, Scarborough became the fourth generation to work for the family business when he became assistant manager. In 1972, he was named president and CEO — a century after his great-grandfather founded the company in Kinston to give Black people “a dignified service in a sympathetic way.”
Michael Jones Sr., owner of Ellis D. Jones & Sons, another Black-owned funeral service in Hayti, recalls how his lifelong colleague “could tell a story, (and) as he got older, they got longer.”
“His family and him, (they) had a great impact on this community,” Jones said. “They’ve been around a long time and served a lot of people, and he will be remembered. I hope the business continues on.”
Life in Hayti, funeral business
Joseph Crooms Hargett brought his son-in-law John C. Scarborough Sr. on board in 1888, paying his way through the Renouard Training School for Embalmers in New York City, Scalaway Magazine reported. Scarborough’s grandfather may have been the nation’s first licensed Black embalmer, it reported.
In 1900, John Scarborough Sr. and his wife, Daisy Hargett Scarborough, opened a new funeral home on Pettigrew Street in Durham.
The role Black funeral homes played from the Civil War to the civil rights era — and their commitment to treat people with dignity — is important to recognize, said Patrick Mucklow, executive director of the Museum of Durham History.
The Scarborough family legacy is “fascinating,” he said
“It is a tragic loss for Durham for such an active member of the community to have passed, and we hope that his legacy carries on,” Mucklow said.
Scarborough & Hargett prospered in the first half of the 20th century, along with the Hayti neighborhood south of downtown Durham. More families arrived, seeking the promise of community and opportunity in the city’s Black Wall Street.
Scarborough loved to tell stories about that history, said Angela Lee, executive director of the Hayti Heritage Center, where he would lead visitors on tours from time to time.
“Every chance I got, I would just go and sit in and listen, because I loved hearing his stories,” Lee said. “When he spoke about growing up and his experiences, and some of the artists who traveled through Durham and came through Hayti, it just came to life.”
Scarborough’s youth was a time when Black ladies in white gloves would traverse the streets with purses dangling from their wrists, as the men tipped their hats in passing, she said. He often would recount sitting outside with his grandfather as someone in a big car passed by, stopping briefly to wave hello.
“They’d pass by and he’d say, ‘Granddad, who was that?’ And he might have said, ‘Oh, that was James Brown or that was Ray Charles,’” Lee said. “He said, ‘They all knew my grandfather.’ Everybody knew everybody.”
Community changes, commitment
Scarborough also saw change come to the neighborhood, after urban renewal started in downtown Durham and six historically black neighborhoods in 1958. Over the next 15 years, thousands of Black-owned homes and hundreds of Black-owned businesses were razed to build public housing and the new Durham Freeway.
The Hayti community was scattered, and those who remained found broken promises, frustration and decline.
Scarborough & Hargett had moved three or four times before settling on Queen Street, Lee said — just a half-mile from the Durham Freeway.
“The only things original to the Hayti community that were left standing were the Hayti Heritage Center, which at that time was a church, and an ABC store,” she said. “We have stood as kind of a symbol of what was, and even though some of the businesses, like Scarborough funeral home, Mechanics & Farmers Bank, N.C. Mutual, those businesses, survived, (they are) not their original locations or structures.“
Scarborough was outspoken about the city’s responsibility to keep its promises to the community, Lee said.
“He lived through that. He saw what it did to his family,” she said.
Among his many community connections, Scarborough’s biography notes he served on the board of directors at Mechanics & Farmers Bank, St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, the NCCU Foundation, Operation Breakthrough, Durham Business and Professional Chain, John Avery Boys’ and Girls’ Club, Durham YMCA, and United Durham Inc.
“Skeepie was a legend in the North Carolina and Durham African-American community and was a wise and resourceful business and political leader,” said Irving Joyner, a professor in N.C. Central University’s School of Law.
Davis also remembered Scarborough as a proud alumnus of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and as being very active in the Masonic lodge as a Shriner and 32nd Degree Mason.
But he knew him more as a historian, Davis said, “someone you could always go to if you had some question about Hayti,” and “a great tennis player.” Scarborough, along with former state Rep. Mickey Michaux and former Durham County Commissioner Nathan Garrett, belonged to the historically Black Algonquin Tennis Club, he said.
The lifelong member of the NAACP also was a member of the Human Relations Committee of the Durham Chamber of Commerce and vice chair of Durham city-county Recreation Advisory Board. At St. Joseph AME Church, where Scarborough was a member for over 60 years, he participated in the Boy Scouts and previously served as assistant vice chairman of the Steward Board.
In 2005, he received the Spirit of Hayti Legacy Award, just one of many he received over the years, the website noted.
Scarborough “will sincerely be missed by his church family,” Rev. Jay Augustine, the pastor of St. Joseph AME Church, said in an email Wednesday.
“He gave so much of himself to both his beloved church and community, as a businessman and civic leader,” Augustine said. “Although I will miss his smile and the laughs we shared, I also take comfort in knowing that his contributions to so many will continue to have meaningful impacts, for years and years to come
Durham Congressman G.K. Butterfield also noted the death of his “personal friend of more than 50 years” in a statement issued Sunday.
Durham has lost a “true pillar” of the community, he said, and a man who “continued his strong family legacy of breaking barriers and serving his community with dedication and compassion in many other ways,” Butterfield said.
“As we mourn the loss of ‘Skeepie,’ we can now return the favor as we honor and celebrate the life and legacy of this son of Durham. He will be dearly missed, but never forgotten,” Butterfield said.
It was fortunate that the community was able to honor Scarborough in February at the annual Hayti Heritage Film Festival, Lee said. It “really meant a lot to him, but it also meant a lot to the community,” she said.
“He was just a very gracious, kind, loving — just a good person,” Lee said. “One of those rare people that you get to know and you say, ‘I’m so glad and so grateful that I had the honor and privilege of knowing him.’”
The story was updated at 4:05 p.m. Nov. 11, 2020, to correct the names of Scarborough’s wife and daughter.
This story was originally published November 11, 2020 at 5:45 AM with the headline "Service for Black NC funeral home owner Scarborough, ‘son of Durham,’ Hayti historian."
