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  • Performance
  • Writing

Pharr’s Funeral Home

1025 NW 2nd Avenue

Pharr’s Funeral Home was owned and operated by Kelsey Pharr, the first licensed black embalmer in Miami. Pharr was working as a waiter at the Royal Palm Hotel when the previous undertaker passed away. Pharr took an embalming course in New York, and convinced three other waiters to join him in purchasing the Funeral Home. Pharr ran the Funeral Home until he retired in 1952.

1930s

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Langston Hughes gave a reading in Pharr’s Funeral Home

During one trip to Miami, Langston Hughes gave several readings around the city. In his autobiography he recalled, "In Miami, I gave a program in an undertakers' parlor, since Negroes had no auditorium there" (51). It is likely that the undertakers' parlor Hughes referred to was Pharr's Funeral Home, owned and operated by Kelsey Pharr.  

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