The room looks more like a hotel lobby than a funeral parlor.
A chandelier hangs from the ceiling, above an elaborate centerpiece. Art adorns the walls.
Marco Sommerville stands amid the finery and recalls how hard it was to come by.
He had dreamed of expanding his funeral home for years, but until recently one thing had always stood in the way: financing.
It's a nightmare for a black business to get money,' Sommerville said.
Those words are echoed time and again in interviews with black entrepreneurs throughout the Akron area. Not only are they less likely to get a loan than whites and other ethnic groups, black business owners say, but when they are approved for financing, they're likely to get far less money.
They give you hanging money,' said body-shop owner Larry Boyer -- enough to get started, but not enough to succeed. Boyer, president of Akron's Black Board of Trades, believes that Summit County financial institutions, like many others across the country, have been discriminating for years.
Recent national studies, cited by such entities as the Small Business Administration, have shown that:
+ Even among owners of established businesses, blacks are approved for short-term business loans only about 62 percent of the time, compared to 87 percent for Hispanics, 90 percent for whites and 96 percent for Asians.
+Start-up loans for black businesses average about $22,500, compared to about $42,000 for whites.
+Banks are loath to lend money to any business in largely black areas, regardless of who owns it.
They (banks) just don't see those businesses as being as viable,' said Margaret Simms, an economist with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank dealing with African-American issues. The same thing happens to white businesses in black neighborhoods.'
The practice is called redlining. And while black business people believe that and other forms of loan discrimination are common in the Akron area, there are few statistics to prove or disprove the claim.
Ron Bugh, regional vice president of community relations for Society Bank, said he does not believe there is loan discrimination in this area and he doesn't understand how black entrepreneurs could have gotten that opinion.
I've been in the banking business 30 years,' he said, and I've never seen discrimination -- where somebody said, I'm not going to lend because of race.'
Bugh said banks are so heavily regulated, especially since the savings and loan scandals, that applicants may feel there is racial bias behind a hurdle they encounter when, actually, it is a government regulation.
People who are not as sophisticated or educated sometimes think we're asking for the moon when we ask for business plans or projections,' he said. ' But that's not a minority issue; that's a small-business issue.'
But black entrepreneurs and others who deal with business lending argue that a double standard often separates white applicants from black.
I've reviewed the records of white businesses and told them, I don't know how you got this (loan),' said Ed Gilbert, an African-American attorney who made his reputation mainly on civil-rights cases but has a sizable corporate practice as well. Their credit is horrible. But they get a higher interest rate. They worked something out. And with blacks, they (bankers) don't do that.'
Black entrepreneurs also complain that they get little help from the Small Business Administration, saying that it sometimes withholds its loan guarantees for black business people even after banks have approved them for financing.
Norma Nelson, director of the SBA regional office for northern Ohio, said that the administration won't guarantee a loan -- even one recommended by a bank -- unless the bank has established a record of making quality loans.
But Nelson, an African-American who became SBA regional director three years ago, remains concerned about complaints of discrimination. She said black business owners have told her they're so frustrated by administration policies that they've stopped applying.
There are no official SBA statistics showing how black applicants fare in SBA approvals compared with other minorities or whites.
But according to an informal tally kept by deputy district director Elmar Koeverer, no Akron-area blacks have even applied for an SBA loan in the last year.
Nelson said she has been trying to convince business people that the administration is minority-friendly, hoping more will apply.
I told them it's a new day,' Nelson said. I told them that I want to make sure everybody gets a fair shake.'
And although there are no statistics to prove it, and although all the SBA's regional loan officers are white females, Nelson said she is confident there is no discrimination.
Loan officer Josie Dellorso-Tusai agrees. Most of the time, we don't even see the applicant,' she said. We make a determination based on whether we think they can pay back the loan, period. Race has nothing to do with it.'
Cordell Slack is one local African-American who had no problem getting an SBA loan guarantee. Slack owns Bessay's, an upscale beauty salon in the valley. He said that Bank One loaned him more than $100,000 to start his business in 1984.
Slack, 40, said he had all the bases covered when he applied. I had an excellent credit rating, an excellent attorney, an excellent accountant. I put together a good business plan, and I went in there and told the bank this is how much money I need, and this is what I am going to do with it.
I didn't just say I'm a hairdresser and I want to open a shop. I had all my ducks in a row. There was no reason for them not to lend me the money.'
But Slack believes he is the exception among Akron-area blacks.
I was fortunate,' he said. For every Cordell, there are 20 others who don't get loans.'
According to some estimates, fewer than 10 percent of black business owners were able to get start-up money through traditional lending sources. Many in Akron say they used their savings or borrowed from family.
Sommerville started his funeral home with his parents' life savings. I felt bad about taking everything they had. My father even worked vacations to give me his vacation pay.'
Carlson Preer opened his Akron Security Doors on Copley Road in 1987, using $10,000 that he had saved from a 20-year career in education.
Willie Felton, who owns West Akron Glass & Mirror on Copley Road, said he started 10 years ago with $430 in rent money, $23 in the cash register and $1,000 worth of glass.
He said he was told he couldn't get a loan to start, so I learned to get along without their loans.'
Larry Pollard said he has never formally applied for the loan he says he needs to expand the electronics business he runs out of his basement.
Pollard said he went to the city's minority loan program several years ago, and was told he could forget about getting a loan.
I've talked to people at the bank,' he said. They look at my stuff, and say I don't have a chance, so I don't even bother to apply.'
Even established businesses have had trouble.
Boyer, who has operated Boyer's Bump Shop on South Arlington Street since 1968, said he applied for loans on several occasions before giving up in the mid-1980s. After a while, you just stop trying,' he said.
And Sommerville, despite owning his business for 10 years, had lots of trouble, too.
I went to banks and they kept telling me that, based on my financial records, my business has not shown that it could generate the kind of money I would need to pay back the kind of money I was asking for,' Sommerville said. ' But I kept telling them that's why I needed to expand. I have to be able to compete with other funeral homes.'
And such is the deep skepticism among blacks about the lending process that when Sommerville finally did get his financing last year, some accused the Akron Ward 3 Councilman of using his political ties to get it.
At first, it really hurt to hear that, especially since I do everything I can' to help others, Sommerville said. But now I don't give a damn what they say.'
Sommerville said blacks can find capital, although it can be an exhausting process. You have to get real creative,' he said.
Sommerville said he finally put together a deal with National City Bank, First National Bank and the state, putting up 10 percent of the money himself. He declined to say how much money he borrowed.
All the scattered pieces are there,' he said. You just have to find them.'
Complaining about racism is not the answer, Sommerville said. We know there's racism. That's a given. So let's move on to figuring out how to get over that wall.'
Some have proposed private consortia of black entrepreneurs -- groups of business owners and those who'd like to be business owners -- pooling their resources and deciding jointly whose project to finance.
The public sector is getting involved, too.
The Black Congressional Caucus has made funding for black-owned businesses a top legislative priority and is exploring strategies that have worked on a state and local level.
Florida has launched the only state-authorized investment vehicle designed for blacks -- the Florida Black Business Investment Board. Since 1987, the board has helped produce $20 million in loans or investments in 184 black- owned businesses, which in turn have created or retained 1,300 jobs.
In Akron, city officials are implementing a project called Copley Road East that will make grants and low-interest loans available to business owners or potential business owners in that predominantly black area.
City planner Thomas Tatum said officials hope Copley Road East will address the concerns of some black business owners that the city has ignored the area in favor of investments in whiter areas of town.
We want to help those who are already in business fix up their businesses,' Tatum said. And we want to encourage people who want to go into business to move into some of the vacant businesses in the area.'