Detroit Free Press

DETROIT – Rosa Parks lies within the granite Gothic walls of her own chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery, her polished stone crypt bathed in soft light, a scene of restrained dignity befitting the mother of the civil rights movement.

For a price, you and your loved ones can be entombed near her. But proximity comes at a premium.

At the Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel just inside the gates of the cemetery on Woodward, prices for the chapel crypts have jumped by no less than 42 percent – and by more than 100 percent in some cases – since the old stone mausoleum was renamed for Parks after her death in October in Detroit.

And it doesn’t sit well with some of the people closest to Parks, who worry that her legacy as the woman who touched off the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in 1955 might be cheapened.

“Her burial was supposed to be private matter, not a spectacle,” said Parks’ closest living relative, nephew William McCauley.

According to the price list, individual crypts in the chapel now cost $24,275, compared with $17,000 before spots in the building formerly known as the Celebration of Life were given, for free, to Parks, her husband and her mother after Parks’ death. That price does not include inscriptions or the mandatory $500 casket wrap. For seven prime spaces closest to Parks’ crypt, an even greater price hike is being considered. Before her death, a crypt could be bought for as little as $30,000. Now, cemetery officials say, negotiations are under way for a package sale of those seven spaces with the per-crypt price in the $60,000 to $65,000 range. The cemetery declined to identify the potential buyers.

Woodlawn officials said they are not exploiting Parks.

“No, no, I don’t think we’re profiteering at all,” said Wade Reynolds, chief operating officer of Mikocem, the management company overseeing Woodlawn and more than 25 other Michigan cemeteries.

He said there have been many improvements and upgrades to make the chapel one of Detroit’s premier burial sites. The new prices, while higher than those at other Detroit-area cemeteries, will fund the improvements, cover future maintenance and turn a reasonable profit, he said.

Tracy Fowlkes, Mikocem’s area sales manager, said the new prices are in line with the chapel’s desirable location as well as upgrades to the 1895 structure.

“There is new underground electrical work, a new security alarm system and other interior upgrades,” she said.

Parks’ final resting place puts her in an unusual position for civil rights pioneers. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is buried at the center named after him in Atlanta; a spot near him cannot be purchased. Harriet Tubman, who helped slaves escape bondage in the South via the Underground Railroad, lies in an older section of Ft. Hill Cemetery in Auburn, N.Y., where officials say there are no grave plots available.

People have asked for spaces near Malcolm X at Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, N.Y., but none are available.

That cemetery has many famous people buried in it – including Judy Garland, Jim Henson, Ed Sullivan, Christopher Reeves, Paul Robeson, Jam Master Jay and Joan Crawford – but sales representative Joe Bivona said it cannot charge a premium for proximity to the famous: The state won’t allow it. New York is the only state in the nation with a board regulating prices. In Hollywood, a line of probity is drawn by Forest Lawn Memorial Parks & Mortuary where many of the stars are buried. The cemetery does not list celebrities who are buried there, nor does it provide maps to their graves, said John Warren, senior vice president of marketing.

The prices, he said, are determined by the setting and amenities of section, not the people buried there.

At Woodlawn, none of the available crypts have yet been sold at the new prices.

“I know some people might want to be buried near her, but we’re just private people and so was she,” said McCauley, a co-representative of her estate. “When will people stop taking advantage of her legacy?”

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Near the end of Parks’ life, tangled lawsuits grew around the use and protection of Parks’ name. One lawsuit was filed in 1999 after Outkast, a hip-hop duo, used her name without permission in a song. Outkast was eventually dropped as a defendant in the suit.

In 2004, a second suit was filed seeking $5 billion from record companies and bookstore chains that sold the recording. The settlement in that suit has been sealed.

While there is no formal arrangement between Woodland and the Raymond and Rosa Parks Institute for Self Development, cemetery officials said they had planned to voluntarily donate 2 percent of sales in the chapel to the organization Parks founded to provide programs for youth.

But cemetery officials said that Elaine Steele, Parks’ longtime associate and caregiver, told them the institute did not want any funds from the sale of space within the chapel. Repeated calls to the institute were not returned, and Steele declined to be interviewed for this story.

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Shirley Kaigler, an attorney for Steele in the settlement of Parks’ estate, said she understood the three crypts for Parks, her husband and her mother were accepted as a donation, just one of many gifts offered in recognition of Parks’ legacy.

Kaigler said the crypt spaces were offered by the cemetery and accepted on Parks’ behalf by federal appellate Judge Damon Keith and Adam Shakoor, former chief judge of Detroit 36th District Court and a co-representative of Parks’ estate.

Parks already had purchased burial plots in the cemetery where titans of Detroit including Fords, Dodges, the Rev. C.L. Franklin and poet Edgar Guest are buried.

While the marketplace may determine the crypt prices, Kaigler said she is concerned with ensuring Parks’ reputation and memory are handled with respect and dignity.

“I’m sure the chapel will be a site for regular visits,” she said. “We are always mindful of how her name is used.”

John Gandelot, another lawyer handling Parks’ estate, said it is up to the market to judge the new prices, while those close to Parks remain most concerned with protecting her legacy and assets, which will go to the institute.

“She was a modest person but certainly aware of the role she played in the civil rights movement,” Gandelot said.

Gandelot said the focus needs to be kept on Parks’ dedication to dignity and equality.

“Mrs. Parks was all about the movement,” he said. “She felt the movement was what mattered.”

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RIGHTS LEADERS’ BURIAL SITES

John Brown: Family farm, North Elba, N.Y.

Frederick Douglass: Mt. Hope Cemetery, Rochester, N.Y.

Medgar Evers: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: King Center, Atlanta

Hajj Mali k El Shabazz (Malcolm X): Ferncliff Cemetery, Westchester County, N.Y.

Sojourner Truth: Oak Hill Cemetery, Battle Creek, Mich.

Harriet Tubman: Ft. Hill Cemetery, Auburn, N.Y.

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(c) 2006, Detroit Free Press.

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AP-NY-03-04-06 1527EST

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