Welcome to Jhon Smith Funeral Services, we have over 12 years of expertise !
Welcome to Jhon Smith Funeral Services, we have over 12 years of expertise !
A Tribute To Our Founder And Our Story
Unity Funeral Chapels, Inc., was established in 1953 by Dr. Clilan B. Powell, (C.B. Powell, namesake).
Dr. C.B. Powell was born in 1894 in Newport News, Virginia, to parents who were ex-slaves. He worked his way through Virginia Normal College and received his medical degree from Howard University, School Of Medicine, in 1920. He specialized in X-ray technology. Dr. C.B. Powell was the country’s first African American X-ray specialist. He opened an X-ray laboratory in Harlem and this is where he met his future business partner, Dr. Phillip H.M. Savory. They collaborated to create the Powell Savory Corporation. With the new corporation, they switched their focus from medicine to business and became the leading African American entrepreneurs in the 1930s. They first purchased the failing Victory Life Insurance Company in Chicago, Illinois, and were able to get it back on even keel. In 1935, they purchased the Amsterdam News. Powell became the publisher and retained that post until its sale in 1971.
Powell became another first when in 1944 New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey appointed him as the Boxing Commissioner, the first African American to ever hold that position. By the 1950s, the Amsterdam News had become the nation’s leading black newspaper due to the extensive coverage of the civil rights movement in the South and the growing black nationalist sentiment in the northern communities. Malcom X, for example, wrote a column for the newspaper titled “God’s Angry Man.” He also made the newspaper home for numerous African American journalists such as Earl Brown, Thomas Watkins, James L. Hicks and Jesse H. Walker. Powell expanded the paper coverage to include national and international news. In 1953, he established Unity Funeral Chapels in Harlem at its present location. In the early 1960s he established a location in the Bronx and another location in Brooklyn. They are all still in operation today and serving families in New York City. During the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Powell was considered one of the richest African Americans in the United States.
When our esteemed leader Malcom X was murdered in 1965, Dr. Powell reached out to his devoted widow, Dr. Betty Shabazz, and offered to have Unity take care of her beloved husband even after many threats were made against Unity for doing so. We also took care of his widow upon her passing and his first grandson, Malcom Latif, upon his untimely death.
Dr. C.B. Powell passed away in 1977 at the age of 83. In 1978 his will revealed that he had left his alma mater Howard University more than three million dollars, which was the largest single gift at that time by an individual to a black college or university. They honored him by naming the C.B. Powell School of Communication Building after him. He also left $50,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense Education Fund.
Three of Dr. Powell’s former employees at Unity Funeral Chapels, Inc., are now the sole owners. They are Clifford V. James, president and CEO; Vincent J. Morgan, vice president and executive secretary; and John T. Dash, treasurer. All are licensed funeral directors.
Just as the families of Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz entrusted us down through the years, we pledge to honor and continue that tradition by caring for families and their loved ones that are entrusted to us. That is our number one priority for all of our families.