Had I known, I’d have been among the hundred people who gathered last week at Athens, Georgia,’s Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery to honor extraordinary 19th-century quilter Harriett Powers.

“Something’s got to be done,” thought Sandy Benjamin-Hannibal, one of the two women who set in motion the idea for a permanent memorial to Powers. Something has got to be done. Kudos to Benjamin-Hannibal and Peggy Hartwell and thanks to all — with Lane Street Project and in cemeteries across this country — who are similarly moved to reclaim the resting places, and thereby honor, our forgotten dead.

(Athens-Clarke County’s restoration of Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery received an Excellence in Rehabilitation Award from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation in 2009 and suggests a model path for Wilson. I need to get over to Athens to pay my respects.)