"It’s important to give the younger generation the opportunity to see there are local Black professionals. It can give them something to look forward to, to strive toward."
Ora W. Spady, September 19, 1982
Employment options were limited for Blacks who moved to Decatur before 1900. Many of the men found work in local hotels as porters, cooks and waiters, while a number of women became domestic servants. Of those who went into business for themselves, men adopted the trade of barbering and women operated laundries from their homes.
Since 1900, several Black-owned businesses have provided services to the general public - such as food preparation, dental appliances, and trucking, while other businesses catered to specific Black interests, such as leisure entertainment, information, and mortuary needs.
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James Hollinger was one of the most prominent colored men not only of Macon County, but of the state of Illinois.” Decatur Herald, June 29, 1908
James Hollinger was born in Virginia in April 1846, and moved with his family to Pennsylvania in 1849 where he learned the barbering trade at age eighteen. He came to Decatur in 1870 and soon started working in Hue Singleton’s shop. He married Cornelia Barbee in Decatur on February 28, 1871. Hollinger was very active in St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church, and the “colored” Masons, and for two years starting in 1880 served as Illinois’ Most Worshipful Grand Master.
Hollinger was also a strong supporter of the Republican Party, and in 1880, as candidate for county coroner, was the first Black person to run for county-wide office in Macon County. Because of his Republican connections he was appointed an Illinois Senate policeman for the General Assembly sessions that started in January 1883, and again in 1887. As this was mostly a ceremonial patronage position, he was able to set up a chair outside the Senate chamber in the State Capitol and give dozens of haircuts. Reflecting in 1906 upon his then thirty-six year career, he enumerated that he had cut the hair or shaved six Illinois governors, eight Decatur mayors and at least six local judges. Hollinger was elected as an assistant Decatur Township Supervisor in 1894, and then again every two years through April 1908, thus he served on the Macon County Board for fourteen continuous years.
Hollinger was a very successful businessman and was able to move from living on South Main Street to 141 West Main Street before 1900 when he bought the Chenoweth Building. He operated his barber shop on the first floor while he and his wife, relatives, and some staff lived in apartments above. He died on June 28, 1908 after a brief illness, and after well-attended Masonic funerary rites, was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery. On June 29 the Decatur Herald wrote that Hollinger’s “business career was most commendable, characterized by fidelity to duty and straightforward dealing.”
In 1912, his widow Cornelia married former Decatur barber and Baptist minister Archie Ward. On October 9, 1934, she passed away in the Prince Hall Masonic Home in Rock Island, an institution that James Hollinger and Hue Singleton had helped create.
Jacob “Jake” Robinson got his barber’s license in 1948 and opened his own shop in 1962. After Jake retired in 2014, the shop is still run by his family. In 1998, Decatur Herald reporter Billy Tyus wrote, “Robinson’s Barber Shop is more than just a place to go for a haircut. It is a culture – a place where African-American men and women … share life experiences.”
"We don’t sell a drop to anyone who comes in staggering. If they want to be a little noisy in a good natured way, we don’t mind, but no rough stuff goes."
Decatur Review, August 1, 1946
Otha Currie Anderson [1910–1972] and Joel Cornelius Williams [1906-1982] were both born into large families in Brownsville, Tennessee, and moved to Decatur as part of the first great Black migration, arriving in Macon County about 1924. Otha worked as a waiter in the Hotel Orlando dining room while Joe worked in the former Sunnyside Golf Club and as a grill manager at the Southside Country Club. They both joined and were active in the John C. Ellis Lodge 17 F & A. M. [Masons] and the Elks Club Lakeview Lodge. Based on their friendship and work experiences in food service, they opened the Hickory Pit Inn at 964 South Franklin Street in 1944.
In July 1946 they opened the A & W Tavern in a building they had built on the northwest corner of 400 South Franklin Street and East Decatur Street. One part of the building contained a forty-foot bar with a glass brick front and seating for up to 160 patrons. The other part of the building consisted of a “dance hall” that could accommodate three hundred people. The establishment was known for its cleanliness and lack of tolerance for unruly patrons, and for seventeen years the business thrived at that location. In April 1963, the City of Decatur bought that property for $45,000 as part of the Greenwood Urban Renewal project and the partnership moved the A & W Tavern to 1088 South Franklin Street where it stayed in business until about 1977.
Otha Anderson married Bessie Minerva George in St. Louis in 1934 and they had one son. They were members of St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church. He died April 6, 1972, and was buried in Decatur’s Greenwood Cemetery.
Joel Williams married Lucille Edith Haire in Decatur in March 1933. Both his father and one brother were ministers and Joel belonged to the Trinity CME church. He died on November 28, 1982, and lies in Decatur’s Graceland Cemetery.
For over sixty years Taylor Transfer Moving & Storage was the only Black-owned moving company in the Decatur area. As early as 1955, Leroy Taylor, while still working at Decatur agricultural implement manufacturer Chambers, Bering, Quinlan, began moving furniture. On January 1, 1957, he incorporated that business and for several years operated with one truck while running classified ads in the Decatur Herald & Review.
Leroy Taylor was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, in November 1922 to Johnnie Taylor and Mary Perkins. After finishing sixth grade he started working on farms, but by 1948 he moved to Decatur and held various jobs at the Wagner Iron Foundry. He was married to Earna (Erna) Mae Taylor. For a number of years the business was operated out of 835 North Water Street and had one truck to move furniture and other goods. However, in 1980 the Motor Carrier Act deregulated the trucking industry and removed restrictions which eased entry for new carriers to do interstate hauling. The second owner of Taylor Transfer would take advantage of this deregulation.
R. V. Clark was born September 21, 1945, also in Brownsville, Tennessee, to Lonnie Clark, Jr. and Rena B. Ivory. He moved to Decatur and began truck driving in 1974. In 1988 he became a driver for Taylor Transfer while it still had only one truck. He took over the company in 1991 when Leroy Taylor was sixty-nine years old. Within a few years the company moved to 529 North Morgan as the business got more trucks and employees. They were now doing interstate hauling, and in 2005 helped organize and transport donations to Houston, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
By 2008 the company had eight semis and five straight trucks; employed ten full-time drivers; and could do business in all forty-eight contiguous states. The company also did much local commercial business for area school districts and other community organizations and was highly successful and respected. R. V. Clark passed on November 21, 2013, and his wife Gracie Clark took over the company. Since that time, Taylor Transfer has faded away and no longer exists.
Company creator Leroy Taylor died on August 13, 2006, at age eighty-three. Both Taylor and Clark were attended to by Walker Funeral Service and Chapel and both men were laid to rest in Decatur’s Greenwood Cemetery.
The newspaper, The Voice of the Black Community, was established in April 1968 by Decatur’s Local Association for Black Action. By January 1969, Horace “Buck” Livingston, Jr. became its fulltime editor and publisher. Over the next nearly forty years its readership expanded and editions were created for three other central Illinois communities. In 2005, Dr. Mitchell Livingston opined, “He is more than a publisher of a paper, Horace Livingston is the embodiment of the spirit of the African-American community in Decatur.”
Photo courtesy of the Decatur Herald & Review.
Raymond Shaw, Sr. went from hotel dishwasher to cook to chef before starting his catering business in 1975 after previously learning ice carving at the American Culinary Institute. In 1984 he opened a coffee shop at 161 South Jasper Street and kept expanding until Shaw’s Restaurant was a large and successful business at that location. In the 1990s he created “Shaw’s Garden,” a rural outdoor dining and reception venue with walkways, gazebos, water features and other amenities. Ray Shaw soon had the biggest catering operation in central Illinois and often had fifty employees. When he passed in 2006 his business of over thirty years closed. Known equally for their good food and charitable works, Vincent and Debra Barbee operated Vinnie’s Barbee-Q restaurants from five locations between 2001 and 2012 and later continued with catered events.
Vincent Barbee and Debra McStadden grew up in Decatur, were sweethearts at MacArthur High School, and married on May 26, 1979. A few years later Vinnie started working at the Bridgestone/Firestone factory in Decatur, and after their children were born, Debra started working there as well. But these fork truck operators also loved to prepare food, and by 2018 started to do some private catering on the side. In 2001, Firestone decided to close down its Decatur operation. Debra was laid off early that year and Vincent was due to finish on December 14 when the plant pressed its last tire. So the Barbee’s decided to follow their dream of operating a restaurant.
In August 2001 they opened the first Vinnie’s Barbee-Q in the former La Gondola spaghetti location at 2855 North Water Street. Vinnie used the BBQ techniques and recipes he learned from his father Tommy Lee Harper. All of the first employees were family members, including several children, new son-in-law Emile Joyner, and Vinnie’s mother Cornulia Harper, a former MRI caseworker who was famous for her peach cobblers. It was shortly after opening that the Barbee’s started to become famous for their philanthropy as well as for their food. On November 22, 2001, they fed hundreds of needy folks a free Thanksgiving meal at the Water Street Mission. Mission director Pastor Charles Gude said “we thank God today for people like Vinnie’s Barbee-Q who see a need in Decatur ….”
That good deed was followed up in December; a few days after Vinnie lost his Firestone job. During the week of December 17, 2001, the Barbees provided a free lunch to any former Firestone employee. This type of culinary largesse would take place several times a year for twenty-four years, and included “Feed the Heroes” meals for first responders; Father’s Day Car Shows for charity; Christmas toy drives, and the traditional Thanksgiving feasts, including in 2009 when Vinnie worked while on crutches. Within the first few months of opening their first restaurant, the Barbees received awards from local Elk Lodges “for outstanding and meritorious service for humanity,” and a certificate of appreciation from the city of Decatur “in recognition of outstanding public service.”
In twenty-first century Decatur, no food-related business has been featured and written about in local media more than Vinnie’s. Articles would include news about their being favorites at the Decatur Celebration, or winning Herald & Review “Reader’s Choice Awards” for Best BBQ, or the Great Forsyth Regional Chili Cook Off. In 2008 they were named as the Decatur Black Chamber of Commerce “Business of the Year.” In April 2023, they received the “Community Commitment Award” at the Heart of Illinois Foundation Do Something Great ceremony.
In addition to catering for philanthropy and private parties at homes and parks, between 2001 and 2012 Vinnie’s Barbee-Q food was served out of the following locations:
2855 N. Water Street in Decatur -2001 to 2004
4705 E. Maryland, Decatur Walmart East – 2002 to 2003
1250 Southside Drive, Decatur Phillips 66 Service Station – 2002 to 2008
North Route 51, Forsyth Phillips 66 Service Station – 2005 to 2008
Hickory Point Mall Food Court – 2008 to 2012
Now in their mid-sixties, the Barbees are mostly only doing special events while still doing good deeds.
The first “mortuary for Negroes,” a Black-owned funeral home in Decatur was opened in April 1947 by John Goin Cheeks at 468 South Water Street. Cheeks, a college-educated army air corps veteran, and husband of the former Gertrude Dansby, moved into the upstairs of the 10-room house on the corner of Water and East Decatur Street with the couple’s young twin boys. Cheeks was a recent graduate of the Worsham School of Mortuary Science and had apprenticed in Peoria at the Goin Funeral Home. The Cheeks ran a successful business until selling to George Brummell in November 1955. The Brummell Funeral Home closed shortly after opening, and that property was razed in the mid-1960s as part of the Greenwood Urban Renewal Project.
Over the next twenty-some years, the Black community in Decatur really wanted a “minority-owned” funeral home as well as other Black professionals to serve as career models for the young. Forty-one year old civil rights worker Ora W. Spady was running his uncle’s Rockford, Illinois, funeral home when he was enticed by City Councilman Bill Oliver and local Black ministers to move to Decatur. On September 5, 1982 he opened the O.W. Spady Community Funeral Home in a former church at 333 South Broadway, now Martin Luther King Drive, and the current site of the Community Church of God. Mr. Spady and wife Barbara did a very brisk business for over a dozen years. Unfortunately, Ora Spady had his Illinois funerary license suspended in March 1996 for improper embalming and the business soon closed.
Knowing the importance of a Black-orientated mortuary to the community, in September 1996, Dr. Thomas E. Walker, Senior Pastor and Founder of the Main Street Church of the Living God, established Walker Funeral Service and Chapel, Inc., at 566 North Water Street in Decatur. His business claims that it “quickly became known for its professionalism, integrity, and compassionate care,” with a goal to offer families a place where they could honor their loved ones with dignity, in a warm and supportive environment. Inspired by the work of O. W. Spady, Rev. Walker’s cousin, Deric C. Walker, earned his degree in mortuary science and became president of the Walker Funeral Service in 1997, when only twenty-three years old.
Since then, due to the growth of the Black population in neighboring communities, in 2005 the Springfield branch of Walker Funeral Service opened, and in 2013 a third location was established in Champaign. In 2024, the company further strengthened its local roots in Decatur by opening a second location at 790 East Mound Road featuring increased seating and an area for family meals.
Lakeshia Fox-Mizell became a funeral director at the Walker funeral home in 1998 and worked there for twenty years. She was a 1996 graduate of Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service in Decatur, Georgia. She has been very involved in community service and in 2018 received one of the local NAACP “Game Changer” awards. In April 2024 she purchased the former Dawson and Wikoff funeral home building at 515 West Wood Street, and now directs the United Funeral Home at that location. In 2025 she was appointed as an auxiliary deputy coroner, the first Black female to serve in that office.
James Hollinger was one of the most prominent colored men not only of Macon County, but of the state of Illinois.” Decatur Herald, June 29, 1908
James Hollinger was born in Virginia in April 1846, and moved with his family to Pennsylvania in 1849 where he learned the barbering trade at age eighteen. He came to Decatur in 1870 and soon started working in Hue Singleton’s shop. He married Cornelia Barbee in Decatur on February 28, 1871. Hollinger was very active in St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church, and the “colored” Masons, and for two years starting in 1880 served as Illinois’ Most Worshipful Grand Master.
Hollinger was also a strong supporter of the Republican Party, and in 1880, as candidate for county coroner, was the first Black person to run for county-wide office in Macon County. Because of his Republican connections he was appointed an Illinois Senate policeman for the General Assembly sessions that started in January 1883, and again in 1887. As this was mostly a ceremonial patronage position, he was able to set up a chair outside the Senate chamber in the State Capitol and give dozens of haircuts. Reflecting in 1906 upon his then thirty-six year career, he enumerated that he had cut the hair or shaved six Illinois governors, eight Decatur mayors and at least six local judges. Hollinger was elected as an assistant Decatur Township Supervisor in 1894, and then again every two years through April 1908, thus he served on the Macon County Board for fourteen continuous years.
Hollinger was a very successful businessman and was able to move from living on South Main Street to 141 West Main Street before 1900 when he bought the Chenoweth Building. He operated his barber shop on the first floor while he and his wife, relatives, and some staff lived in apartments above. He died on June 28, 1908 after a brief illness, and after well-attended Masonic funerary rites, was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery. On June 29 the Decatur Herald wrote that Hollinger’s “business career was most commendable, characterized by fidelity to duty and straightforward dealing.”
In 1912, his widow Cornelia married former Decatur barber and Baptist minister Archie Ward. On October 9, 1934, she passed away in the Prince Hall Masonic Home in Rock Island, an institution that James Hollinger and Hue Singleton had helped create.
Jacob “Jake” Robinson got his barber’s license in 1948 and opened his own shop in 1962. After Jake retired in 2014, the shop is still run by his family. In 1998, Decatur Herald reporter Billy Tyus wrote, “Robinson’s Barber Shop is more than just a place to go for a haircut. It is a culture – a place where African-American men and women … share life experiences.”
"We don’t sell a drop to anyone who comes in staggering. If they want to be a little noisy in a good natured way, we don’t mind, but no rough stuff goes."
Decatur Review, August 1, 1946
Otha Currie Anderson [1910–1972] and Joel Cornelius Williams [1906-1982] were both born into large families in Brownsville, Tennessee, and moved to Decatur as part of the first great Black migration, arriving in Macon County about 1924. Otha worked as a waiter in the Hotel Orlando dining room while Joe worked in the former Sunnyside Golf Club and as a grill manager at the Southside Country Club. They both joined and were active in the John C. Ellis Lodge 17 F & A. M. [Masons] and the Elks Club Lakeview Lodge. Based on their friendship and work experiences in food service, they opened the Hickory Pit Inn at 964 South Franklin Street in 1944.
In July 1946 they opened the A & W Tavern in a building they had built on the northwest corner of 400 South Franklin Street and East Decatur Street. One part of the building contained a forty-foot bar with a glass brick front and seating for up to 160 patrons. The other part of the building consisted of a “dance hall” that could accommodate three hundred people. The establishment was known for its cleanliness and lack of tolerance for unruly patrons, and for seventeen years the business thrived at that location. In April 1963, the City of Decatur bought that property for $45,000 as part of the Greenwood Urban Renewal project and the partnership moved the A & W Tavern to 1088 South Franklin Street where it stayed in business until about 1977.
Otha Anderson married Bessie Minerva George in St. Louis in 1934 and they had one son. They were members of St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church. He died April 6, 1972, and was buried in Decatur’s Greenwood Cemetery.
Joel Williams married Lucille Edith Haire in Decatur in March 1933. Both his father and one brother were ministers and Joel belonged to the Trinity CME church. He died on November 28, 1982, and lies in Decatur’s Graceland Cemetery.
For over sixty years Taylor Transfer Moving & Storage was the only Black-owned moving company in the Decatur area. As early as 1955, Leroy Taylor, while still working at Decatur agricultural implement manufacturer Chambers, Bering, Quinlan, began moving furniture. On January 1, 1957, he incorporated that business and for several years operated with one truck while running classified ads in the Decatur Herald & Review.
Leroy Taylor was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, in November 1922 to Johnnie Taylor and Mary Perkins. After finishing sixth grade he started working on farms, but by 1948 he moved to Decatur and held various jobs at the Wagner Iron Foundry. He was married to Earna (Erna) Mae Taylor. For a number of years the business was operated out of 835 North Water Street and had one truck to move furniture and other goods. However, in 1980 the Motor Carrier Act deregulated the trucking industry and removed restrictions which eased entry for new carriers to do interstate hauling. The second owner of Taylor Transfer would take advantage of this deregulation.
R. V. Clark was born September 21, 1945, also in Brownsville, Tennessee, to Lonnie Clark, Jr. and Rena B. Ivory. He moved to Decatur and began truck driving in 1974. In 1988 he became a driver for Taylor Transfer while it still had only one truck. He took over the company in 1991 when Leroy Taylor was sixty-nine years old. Within a few years the company moved to 529 North Morgan as the business got more trucks and employees. They were now doing interstate hauling, and in 2005 helped organize and transport donations to Houston, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
By 2008 the company had eight semis and five straight trucks; employed ten full-time drivers; and could do business in all forty-eight contiguous states. The company also did much local commercial business for area school districts and other community organizations and was highly successful and respected. R. V. Clark passed on November 21, 2013, and his wife Gracie Clark took over the company. Since that time, Taylor Transfer has faded away and no longer exists.
Company creator Leroy Taylor died on August 13, 2006, at age eighty-three. Both Taylor and Clark were attended to by Walker Funeral Service and Chapel and both men were laid to rest in Decatur’s Greenwood Cemetery.
The newspaper, The Voice of the Black Community, was established in April 1968 by Decatur’s Local Association for Black Action. By January 1969, Horace “Buck” Livingston, Jr. became its fulltime editor and publisher. Over the next nearly forty years its readership expanded and editions were created for three other central Illinois communities. In 2005, Dr. Mitchell Livingston opined, “He is more than a publisher of a paper, Horace Livingston is the embodiment of the spirit of the African-American community in Decatur.”
Photo courtesy of the Decatur Herald & Review.
Raymond Shaw, Sr. went from hotel dishwasher to cook to chef before starting his catering business in 1975 after previously learning ice carving at the American Culinary Institute. In 1984 he opened a coffee shop at 161 South Jasper Street and kept expanding until Shaw’s Restaurant was a large and successful business at that location. In the 1990s he created “Shaw’s Garden,” a rural outdoor dining and reception venue with walkways, gazebos, water features and other amenities. Ray Shaw soon had the biggest catering operation in central Illinois and often had fifty employees. When he passed in 2006 his business of over thirty years closed. Known equally for their good food and charitable works, Vincent and Debra Barbee operated Vinnie’s Barbee-Q restaurants from five locations between 2001 and 2012 and later continued with catered events.
Vincent Barbee and Debra McStadden grew up in Decatur, were sweethearts at MacArthur High School, and married on May 26, 1979. A few years later Vinnie started working at the Bridgestone/Firestone factory in Decatur, and after their children were born, Debra started working there as well. But these fork truck operators also loved to prepare food, and by 2018 started to do some private catering on the side. In 2001, Firestone decided to close down its Decatur operation. Debra was laid off early that year and Vincent was due to finish on December 14 when the plant pressed its last tire. So the Barbee’s decided to follow their dream of operating a restaurant.
In August 2001 they opened the first Vinnie’s Barbee-Q in the former La Gondola spaghetti location at 2855 North Water Street. Vinnie used the BBQ techniques and recipes he learned from his father Tommy Lee Harper. All of the first employees were family members, including several children, new son-in-law Emile Joyner, and Vinnie’s mother Cornulia Harper, a former MRI caseworker who was famous for her peach cobblers. It was shortly after opening that the Barbee’s started to become famous for their philanthropy as well as for their food. On November 22, 2001, they fed hundreds of needy folks a free Thanksgiving meal at the Water Street Mission. Mission director Pastor Charles Gude said “we thank God today for people like Vinnie’s Barbee-Q who see a need in Decatur ….”
That good deed was followed up in December; a few days after Vinnie lost his Firestone job. During the week of December 17, 2001, the Barbees provided a free lunch to any former Firestone employee. This type of culinary largesse would take place several times a year for twenty-four years, and included “Feed the Heroes” meals for first responders; Father’s Day Car Shows for charity; Christmas toy drives, and the traditional Thanksgiving feasts, including in 2009 when Vinnie worked while on crutches. Within the first few months of opening their first restaurant, the Barbees received awards from local Elk Lodges “for outstanding and meritorious service for humanity,” and a certificate of appreciation from the city of Decatur “in recognition of outstanding public service.”
In twenty-first century Decatur, no food-related business has been featured and written about in local media more than Vinnie’s. Articles would include news about their being favorites at the Decatur Celebration, or winning Herald & Review “Reader’s Choice Awards” for Best BBQ, or the Great Forsyth Regional Chili Cook Off. In 2008 they were named as the Decatur Black Chamber of Commerce “Business of the Year.” In April 2023, they received the “Community Commitment Award” at the Heart of Illinois Foundation Do Something Great ceremony.
In addition to catering for philanthropy and private parties at homes and parks, between 2001 and 2012 Vinnie’s Barbee-Q food was served out of the following locations:
2855 N. Water Street in Decatur -2001 to 2004
4705 E. Maryland, Decatur Walmart East – 2002 to 2003
1250 Southside Drive, Decatur Phillips 66 Service Station – 2002 to 2008
North Route 51, Forsyth Phillips 66 Service Station – 2005 to 2008
Hickory Point Mall Food Court – 2008 to 2012
Now in their mid-sixties, the Barbees are mostly only doing special events while still doing good deeds.
The first “mortuary for Negroes,” a Black-owned funeral home in Decatur was opened in April 1947 by John Goin Cheeks at 468 South Water Street. Cheeks, a college-educated army air corps veteran, and husband of the former Gertrude Dansby, moved into the upstairs of the 10-room house on the corner of Water and East Decatur Street with the couple’s young twin boys. Cheeks was a recent graduate of the Worsham School of Mortuary Science and had apprenticed in Peoria at the Goin Funeral Home. The Cheeks ran a successful business until selling to George Brummell in November 1955. The Brummell Funeral Home closed shortly after opening, and that property was razed in the mid-1960s as part of the Greenwood Urban Renewal Project.
Over the next twenty-some years, the Black community in Decatur really wanted a “minority-owned” funeral home as well as other Black professionals to serve as career models for the young. Forty-one year old civil rights worker Ora W. Spady was running his uncle’s Rockford, Illinois, funeral home when he was enticed by City Councilman Bill Oliver and local Black ministers to move to Decatur. On September 5, 1982 he opened the O.W. Spady Community Funeral Home in a former church at 333 South Broadway, now Martin Luther King Drive, and the current site of the Community Church of God. Mr. Spady and wife Barbara did a very brisk business for over a dozen years. Unfortunately, Ora Spady had his Illinois funerary license suspended in March 1996 for improper embalming and the business soon closed.
Knowing the importance of a Black-orientated mortuary to the community, in September 1996, Dr. Thomas E. Walker, Senior Pastor and Founder of the Main Street Church of the Living God, established Walker Funeral Service and Chapel, Inc., at 566 North Water Street in Decatur. His business claims that it “quickly became known for its professionalism, integrity, and compassionate care,” with a goal to offer families a place where they could honor their loved ones with dignity, in a warm and supportive environment. Inspired by the work of O. W. Spady, Rev. Walker’s cousin, Deric C. Walker, earned his degree in mortuary science and became president of the Walker Funeral Service in 1997, when only twenty-three years old.
Since then, due to the growth of the Black population in neighboring communities, in 2005 the Springfield branch of Walker Funeral Service opened, and in 2013 a third location was established in Champaign. In 2024, the company further strengthened its local roots in Decatur by opening a second location at 790 East Mound Road featuring increased seating and an area for family meals.
Lakeshia Fox-Mizell became a funeral director at the Walker funeral home in 1998 and worked there for twenty years. She was a 1996 graduate of Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service in Decatur, Georgia. She has been very involved in community service and in 2018 received one of the local NAACP “Game Changer” awards. In April 2024 she purchased the former Dawson and Wikoff funeral home building at 515 West Wood Street, and now directs the United Funeral Home at that location. In 2025 she was appointed as an auxiliary deputy coroner, the first Black female to serve in that office.
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