By Thomas A. Parmalee
Edwin Jackson’s mom broke the news to him at age 13: It was time for him to get a job.
“The conversation revolved around me not being good enough to be in the NBA … and it was time to get myself acclimated to the workforce,” said Jackson, 36.
Telling her son to get a job and witnessing him earning a paycheck, however, were two different things, so she struck up a conversation with a friend who owned a funeral home in Baltimore.
That friend – Vaughn Greene – is now widely regarded as one of the leading Black funeral directors in the Mid-Atlantic region: He operates six locations across Maryland and Pennsylvania that serve thousands of families every year.
“He told her he wanted his daughter interested in business, and my mom said the same thing about me,” said Jackson, who at the time had entered Mount St. Joseph High School, a private Catholic school in the West Baltimore area.
What happened next changed the trajectory of Jackson’s life for good: Greene made it clear to his mom, Lisa, that he’d entertain the idea of Edwin working at his funeral home, “doing odds and ends,” as Jackson put it.
After all, he was friends with his mom, and his daughter had gone to elementary school with Jackson. This was a good family who needed his help.
“So, when I started at Vaughn Greene Funeral Services, it was a summer job,” Jackson said. “I had thought I’d be cleaning up the parking lot and washing the cars.”
A Memorable First Day
There was lots of cleaning up the parking lot and washing cars in the not-too-distant future, but Jackson started with other tasks.
“On my first day, I ended up going on a removal,” he said. “I got there at 8 a.m. and was waiting for instructions.”
Seeing him sitting on his hands, some staff members asked Jackson if he wanted to see what they do.
So, he got into their van.
When they arrived at their destination, someone nudged him and told him to look in the corner.
“I saw an arm behind the couch … and in my head, I’m saying, ‘Oh no …,’” Jackson said.
Up until then, no one had told him what they wanted him to do, but he began to figure out things for himself.
“They talked to the family and went into another room, and I was told to help pick up the body” he said. “And I thought, ‘Not me. I’m not doing that.’”
A stern look from one of the funeral home staff, however, convinced him that he was going to do what he was told.
His first day also included a visit to the medical examiner’s office, where he went into a freezer to track down a body and learned how to work a cot to take it into an embalming room, where he saw two embalmers working on an autopsy case.
“I was overexposed essentially – and that was my very first day,” he said.
When he went home that day, he sat down at the dinner table and put his head in his hands. His mom asked if he was OK.
When he told her about his day, she said, “I didn’t know you would be doing all that,” he recalled.
She asked him if he wanted to go back, giving him an easy way out, saying if he wanted, he could work with her at a local hospital, where she worked in the human resources department.
“I was not working with my mother the entire summer … that was not happening,” Jackson said.
Also, there was something else.
“I had never been one to quit anything,” Jackson said.
So, he went back to the funeral home the next day, the next week, then the next summer … and then the summer after that – and so on.
“I got exposed to so many positive aspects of funeral service in that first summer,” he said. That included business elements as well as the chance it afforded to serve members of the community.
It also gave Jackson – a Black man – the chance to rub elbows with Greene, also Black, and see a shining example of someone making a success of himself while giving back to others.
“I enjoyed the ability to interact with members of my own community, particularly in a space where you do not see visible Black businesses,” he said. “The funeral home was definitely one of the spaces that showed a new side of the city to me.”
It also wasn’t lost on Jackson that very few people – if any – in his age group were getting to experience what he saw on a daily basis.
If nothing else, he’d have some good stories to tell, which he began to write down in a notebook that he kept for years to come.
“But I did not think it would turn into a whole career at that point,” he admitted.
Learning the Job
That first summer would be the first of several for Jackson working at the funeral home.
His direct supervisor was Javoke S. Terrell, who now owns Davis Funeral Home with locations in Wilmington and Brunswick County, North Carolina.
“He really took an interest in making sure I was somewhere between getting enough exposure and making sure I am not being thrown to the wolves,” Jackson said. “I was still a child for all intents and purposes … but once I told him I was going to mortuary school, he made sure I was exposed to all aspects of the business.”
Jackson had the opportunity to work with a diverse staff who had grown up in states throughout the country.
“I learned what service looked like … and the fact that they treated me as an adult was great,” he said. “Sometimes, I probably needed to be a teenager, but I learned how to handle myself.”
The owner of the funeral home – Greene – has gone on to do amazingly well: He now owns four funeral homes in the Baltimore area and two in the Philadelphia area, Jackson said.
To Jackson, however, Greene will always be the person who took a chance on him.
“We now live in a time where I am not sure I would hire a 13-year-old who was not my blood to work in my business and represent my business,” Jackson said. “The fact that Mr. Greene went out on a limb to take a chance on me … I can’t thank him enough for that. I would say I could have no better role model. He really took pride in hiring a diverse staff with an amazing skillset, focused on service and delivering a great product.”
Asked why Greene took a chance on him, Jackson said he’s never really gotten into that conversation. with him.
“But I remember asking him how he got started, and it was the same way I did … someone gave him a chance,” Jackson said. “He’s a first-generation funeral director, and I am also.” He added, “It helps to have parents who are involved and have an equally good reputation … they knew each other and had enough of a relationship where I guess it wasn’t too big of a risk.”
He added, “I do like to believe Mr. Greene saw a little bit of himself in me … I was a young Black male trying to figure out what the next step was.”
Taking a chance on Jackson paid off: He stayed with Greene for almost 20 years, working at the funeral home full time until 2023.
During that time, Jackson served in a variety of roles but has always gotten the most satisfaction from working in the embalming room, thriving in his role managing a Compassionate Care Center that Greene created as a central preparation location to serve his various funeral homes.
“As far as the cremation rate … I would kind of ask questions during my years there … was there any interest in opening a crematory? I think for a lot of people, we all kind of had a hesitancy because of liability concerns and not wanting to make a mistake. Also, for us in the Black community, the cremation rate 10 years ago was still lower than it was for the white community, so there was not as much urgency.”
Just recently, however, Greene opened a crematory to serve the community, Jackson said.
“For much of my time there, from a business standpoint, the majority of our families still wanted a full viewing, full service and burial,” Jackson said. “It was only my last year there where we really got to the point of having conversations about a crematory, where we needed to start looking at zoning, etc.”
Jackson also been exposed to other funeral homes, serving his apprenticeship at Temple & Sons Funeral Directors in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, which was close to the University of Central Oklahoma, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in funeral service.
The experience helped him gain a better understanding of some of his co-workers, who had worked in the South or in smaller operations before making the transition to Greene. “I understood where the attention to care and service came from,” he said.
The ‘Silent Work’ of Black Funeral Directors
There is a lot more to being a funeral home owner than simply being there for grieving families, especially in the Black community.
“I realized early on that the funeral home space is more than just a place for deathcare or even for the business of death,” Jackson said. “It is a community space, where pastors, members of the community, politicians and others gather. I would watch Mr. Greene be at the center of that.”
Even as a young teen, it dawned on Jackson that the man who’d given him a job was much more than a businessman but a pillar of the community.
Despite the above, Jackson was still keenly aware of racial disparities throughout society.
“When it comes to who owns what … you go into local shops, and you are aware of the fact that there are not a lot of people who look like you owning these spaces,” he said. “So, to see not just a Black male but a Black family owning a business that – if it was not no. 1 was one of the top three funeral service providers in the city if not the state – and to see that he employed an all-minority staff of 40 or 50 employees and paid them well compared to the national average and what other local funeral homes were paying – that was special.”
Moreover, Greene didn’t just own a business. He created jobs for others.
“He gave opportunities to non-licensees who were not always as fortunate as I had been to receive a high school education much less an undergraduate education,” Jackson said. “He is part of a tradition of Black funeral directors being leaders in their local community.”
He elaborated, “Especially in cities like Baltimore, funeral homes have not only been for funeral services. If you needed space for a meeting, you could go to the local funeral director. If you needed an individual to come to bat for you at a council meeting or to sponsor a baseball team, you could go to them.”
At the end of the day, there is “so much silent work” that Black funeral directors take on, Jackson said. “It really makes a huge impact,” he said.
A Big Pivot
Jackson has always been a lover of history and academically inclined.
“I told my parents before working in the funeral home that I wanted to study history, and they said that is fine, but you need something that pays the bills. And one thing I will say is that funeral service paid my way … it funded my way to work on earning a doctorate (he expects to earn his Ph.D. in history from Morgan State University soon) and allowed me to go to conferences.”
Through it all, his parents have been supportive, including his father, David Jackson, who has been married to his mom for 40 years. “He constantly encouraged me to seek opportunities to lead,” he said.
But Jackson has never aspired to own a funeral home, he said.
“As a person who wanted to one day have a family, I knew I did not want my kids to see the back of my head,” he explained, observing that the reality of owning a funeral home means “you are running constantly.”
He has, however, always dreamed of teaching, so when the opportunity rose to serve as an adjunct instructor at the Community College of Baltimore County, he took it.
While he anticipated waiting to make the transition to teaching full time, it took less than two years for him to become a full-time member of the faculty, joining the staff as an assistant professor in 2024.
“It was an extremely tough decision to leave what had been the only job I ever had working with a group of people who I consider family,” he said.
He still sees his colleagues from Greene, however, on a part-time basis – in addition to working for other funeral homes, as well.
“I teach embalming and restorative art classes, and I think it is important that students know I am still out in the field,” he said. “I am still actively refining and trying to get better – 95% of it is trade work, but every once in a while, I will get a call to be the funeral director.”
He’s grateful to be working for such a prestigious institution – one that was established in 1973 and is the only school in Maryland with an accredited mortuary science program.
With a mostly in-person program at its Catonsville campus, about 70 students are enrolled as mortuary science students, he said. Another 40 or so students are working on prerequisite requirements before entering the program.
“Teaching has been so rewarding … I get the chance to interact with all types of students who are really hungry to get into the field.”
Most of the students – 85% of them – are female, and the average age is about 30 – “right there with what the industry is saying,” Jackson said.
“Our students are older, and the majority are female,” he said. “They graduate from our program equipped and confident in what they are able to do.”
Nationwide, however, there are still not enough minority students studying to be funeral directors, Jackson said.
“I hold concerns for the community that I primarily serve,” he said. “While we have more women, the number of Black women and men is still extremely low.” He continued, “We need to start doing some active recruiting … our numbers are just substantially lower than the white population that is coming into our field.”
Jackson makes it a point to attend various conferences, so he can bring back insights and best practices for his students. “I get them excited about the different levels of our industry that go beyond the prep room and beyond the traditional funeral service space,” he said.
He also encourages students – many of whom are entering funeral service as a second career – to think about how they can refine what they have learned in the past to stand out in this business.
He’s also a big believer in keeping an in-person component to the mortuary science program.
“We do want to add more classes online and make sure our students are graduating in a timely fashion … but if we can help it, I don’t see us ever truly going 100% online” he said, noting that some of the most important professional relationships you can develop are cultivated in person with your classmates.
“Learning in person allows you to build more sustainable relationships,” he said.
Moving Mortuary Education Forward
In June 2025, Jackson was selected to serve on the American Board of Funeral Service Education curriculum review team for restorative art.
In a post on LinkedIn, he shared, “Every few years the curriculum taught to funeral service students is reviewed and updated, and being invited into that process felt like both an honor and a responsibility. I was encouraged to apply by my ABFSE mentor, Jolena Grande — yes, the same Jolena featured in HBO’s The Mortician.”
He continued, “Anyone who went through funeral service education remembers or has perhaps heard what many restorative art materials looked like. For decades, there had been little to no meaningful updates to the textbooks — many rooted in Eurocentric perspectives, filled with outdated racialized language, and offering limited or inadequate guidance for restoring non-white decedents. As a freshman at the University of Central Oklahoma in 2008, I remember feeling shocked, frustrated, and honestly confused reading J. Sheridan Mayer’s Restorative Art and Color and Cosmetics, both originally published in 1941. I vividly remember thinking, ‘How in Barack Obama’s America is this acceptable?’ I pressed my professor for answers, and his response was simple: “This is all we have.”
That moment stayed with Jackson, so when the opportunity came to update the curriculum, he knew the impact could be immediate — not just for students today, but for generations of funeral service professionals to come.
“Under the leadership of our chair, Benjamin Schmidt, my team and I carefully reviewed existing texts, curriculum standards, and considered public comments from fellow professionals such as Joél Simone,” he shared. “We made meaningful changes to the curriculum by removing outdated and harmful language, moving away from references that no longer reflected best practices, and creating space for more inclusive restorative approaches that better serve all skin tones, ethnicities, and gender identities.
He gave special recognition to his colleagues and team members, including Dominick Astorino, Ally Cabrera, Jennie Fredrickson, Rachel Mackey, Daniel Shea, and Jacob Smith.
“The work this group accomplished feels nothing short of historic,” he said. “We moved with intention, collaboration, and purpose. I was able to bring my specialized knowledge of race and history into conversations that created space for reflection and meaningful change. The pride I feel in being part of that effort is hard to put into words.”
Asked about his continuing work in this area, Jackson was blunt, noting, “If you are a nonwhite mortuary student … you don’t see yourself in the material.”
He hopes that the changes that the curriculum review team for restorative art recommended will be approved by the end of April.
The other thing he’s hoping for is for more funeral home owners to give mortuary college students a chance.
“As much as we talk about there being a lack of funeral directors out there in the field, our students are still struggling to find apprenticeships and opportunities,” he said.
Asked what the problem could be, he said he’s looking to create a more formal mentorship program at his college.
“I think every mortuary school can benefit from some type of program that would get local funeral homes together that are like-minded enough to give students exposure,” he said. “It could be on a volunteer basis to see if they can see themselves being in this business. A lot of students don’t truly get involved in the industry until they get licensed and are in the funeral home.”
He also hopes funeral homes can be a bit more flexible in who they hire.
“Are our students the same student I was? Definitely not,” he said. “Even from a personal standpoint, I have students who struggle with anxiety and who have never worked in a funeral home, but somehow, they believe they want to do this work.”
He continued, “I’m not saying as a business owner you need to bend over backward to accommodate the new worker, but I am going to say there needs to be some flexibility because these students will go elsewhere if they are not willing to make some accommodation.”
As for Jackson, he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.
“I know that here, I can make a positive impact,” he said. “I can give back differently to the industry that has already given me so much.”
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