A week ago today, I sent a letter to the mayor, city manager, and city council members concerning Vick Cemetery’s future. Lamentably, but par for the course, none of the nine responded with so much as an acknowledgment of receipt.

In the absence of responses, we have only the comments of Rebecca Agner, the City’s spokesperson, as reported in the August 29 Wilson Times. Let’s parse them.

Immediately, my heart sinks: “Public works will complete plans and begin addressing the issue soon.” With all due respect to the fine men and women of Wilson’s public works department, turning to public works as a first step is how we got where we are. Public works came up with the plan back in the ’90s to level Vick Cemetery and remove its headstones. Addressing the erosion issue is not solely a drainage ditch problem, and I invite correction if I’m wrong, but I feel confident in stating that nobody in public works, then or now, has any expertise in cemetery preservation.

Bullet point 5 of my September 2 letter requested “Consultation with archaeologists or other experts on the most appropriate way to halt erosion of Vick Cemetery exacerbated by the intensive defoliation of the ditch at its edge and, more generally, commitment to engaging with qualified professionals with experience related to cemeteries and cemetery preservation, including but not limited to archaeologists, historic preservationists, geophysicists, and government agencies, such as the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. The issues at Vick Cemetery cannot be redressed with lawn maintenance or road maintenance solutions. But here we are, with the City once again placing responsibility for resolving this pressing issue in the hands of people who, while excellent at all that is within their wheelhouse, are not trained to devise plans for cemetery preservation and to ensure compliance with pertinent laws and regulations. (We have not talked about the application of a scorched-earth strength directly into a drainage ditch, a highly regulated activity that is generally proscribed or requires special permits.)

It is understandable if you read this to mean that the City’s delay in spending the $50,000 was because they’re been “working with state official” for two years to reallocate the funding to Vick and only now are able to begin “developing a scope of work for the recommendations.” If that’s what you understood, however, you are mistaken.

This Times clipping is an excerpt from my blog post on 24 September 2023:

Three days earlier, I had raised questions about why the state budget had included “$50,000 to the City of Wilson for capital improvements or equipment at the Herring-Ellis Cemetery.” (Herring-Ellis is an African-American family cemetery on Forest Hills Road that that benefitted from a one-time clean-up by students led by former state legislator Ken Fontenot.) As we see above, Mayor Carlton Stevens immediately recognized the problem with using state money to clean up one private cemetery, and Fontenot quickly pivoted, claiming that he meant to include Vick all along. Bottom line, Wilson has had (or known it was getting) this money, properly allocated to Vick, for nigh on two years. Only now, though, after a Lane Street Project volunteer raises the alarm about erosion, has it started shuffling its feet to think about solutions.

Note carefully that Agner makes no mention of engaging the descendant community in a discussion of what to do at Vick. No mention of consulting subject-matter experts. As ever — do they never learn? — decisions about Vick will be made behind closed doors by people with no people in this ground. These decisions will then be presented fait accompli to people whose foremothers and forefathers’ graves lie, best case, under a featureless expanse of lawn, but may be under a parking pad or walkway or pierced by a utility pole or the anchor of a guy wire.

Demand better, Wilson. Demand more. Starting with transparency and accountability.

Ask hard questions. Is the City going to ignore the dead buried in what we now consider public right-of-way? Where are the headstones? Who allowed the power poles? Will the poles and the guy wires remain? Will a full survey map be filed in the office of Register of Deeds? Why not?

WE REMEMBER VICK CEMETERY.