Born in Kinston, J.C. Scarborough was one of the first morticians in Durham, North Carolina. His business success allowed him to start various charities in the Durham area.
Before Scarborough was born, the actions of a grocer in Kinston, North Carolina, set in motion events that would affect Scarborough’s career. In Kinston after the Civil War, just one funeral home existed; the director used a horse-drawn hearse for whites’ funerals yet only a horse and wagon for blacks’ funerals. This practice offended Joseph.C. Hargett, especially when the undertaker ignored appeals from the African-American community to provide the same service to Kinston blacks. So Hargett started a funeral home.
J. C. Hargett had a clerk, J.C. Scarborough. In 1905, Hargett sponsored Scarborough’s education at Kittrell Business College in Kittrell, North Carolina, and provided capital for him to start a funeral home. Scarborough traveled to New York City and enrolled in Reounard Training School for Embalmers. He was the only black student.
After graduation, he established his funeral home in Durham’s African American community,. It was very successful. Over time, he married Joseph C. Hargett’s daughter, and the Durham funeral home became the Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center. It exists today. Scarborough also founded the Funeral Directors and Morticians Association of North Carolina, a group of black morticians. He also became a director of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank.
Like many entrepreneurs, Scarborough became a philanthropist. In 1925, he bought an aged hospital and turned it into a school that provided proper nourishment and offered educational opportunities to Durham’s most impoverished chldren. The institution helped alleviate poverty and improved health conditions in the African American community. This was the Scarborough Nursery Home, which exists today.