My remarks as a Voice of Vick required that I take off my Vick Cemetery Advisory Committee hat and put on my Black Wide-Awake/Lane Street Project hat:

In December 2025, city contractors dislodged and broke a marble vault while excavating the ditch at Vick Cemetery. I’d been shouting for years that there are graves in that ditch, and suddenly there was proof. This was the lowest point in my journey with Vick Cemetery, and I despaired that justice would ever come for the ancestors buried here. However, though the accident that disturbed this grave was awful (and avoidable), that awfulness has been transmuted. I am grateful to the unknown ancestor who, by losing his or her peaceful repose, opened a path for us to move forward in our fight for respect and due care for Vick Cemetery.

The Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”

At Vick Cemetery, those cries, amplified by the cries of descendants, have finally been heard.

I’ve been told that every compelling story has the same set of fundamental characters. A villain, a victim, and a vindicator. The story of Vick Cemetery is certainly compelling. And I think we all recognize who the villain was and who the victim – the victims – were. They lie in the thousands beneath our feet.

However, for all its compelling quality, the story of Vick Cemetery is not unique. In fact, it’s a story with far too many iterations. Everywhere Jim Crow reigned, where social, political, and economic power were massed on one side of the tracks, there are Vick Cemeteries. But we now see that the story of Wilson’s Vick Cemetery is unusual. Because as that story moved toward its latter chapters, the accompanying arc of the moral universe began to dip. After 113 years in a long, stubborn, flat trajectory of neglect, the arc began to bend toward justice. As it tilted, it pulled villain and victim closer … and closer … until they met at the terrible point at which a backhoe struck a marble vault. In the aftermath of that shocking event, villain and victim finally joined — and together became the vindicators of Vick Cemetery. We’re here today to celebrate the fruits of a collaboration to reclaim this sacred space. That’s our unique story.

On the one hand, reclamation of Vick Cemetery would not have been possible without movement forward by enlightened leadership in the City of Wilson.

Without city council members willing to care about every corner of Wilson and to be unafraid to hold themselves accountable for the mistakes of their predecessors.

Without a city manager, himself a student of history, willing to open eyes and ears – to actually SEE and HEAR — and extend a hand at a crucial moment.

Without a mayor who is a man of faith and, by virtue of his and his family’s life’s work, understood five years ago why the wrongs done here must be righted.

And then there is the descendant community. We have elders approaching 100 years old who attended the funerals of their family members in Vick Cemetery. Folks who may not have spoken out publicly over the years, but who were hurt by the neglect of their kin. The families of the Lane Street cemeteries never abandoned their dead. Vick is a public cemetery. We didn’t own it. Yet, though we were not responsible for its upkeep, we did our best. Eventually, distance, or age, or responsibilities to the living kept us from coming to lay flowers or to chop weeds, but our ancestors were never abandoned. We knew our people were here, even if we didn’t know how best to reclaim them.

I am a part of that descendant community. I have not lived in Wilson for most of my life, but will always be of this place. My uncle, who was born and died in 1928, is buried in Vick. Eighteen of his aunts, uncles, and cousins are there. I am a lawyer. A public historian. A genealogist. With decades of education and experience in research and analysis and argument and a willingness to apply those skills in service to my community. So, when I began to piece together what had happened in Vick Cemetery, I could not stand by. To paraphrase something I heard recently, “I was in a good situation, for the situation.” The fine details of these six years of struggle are a story for another time. But from the beginning, the descendant community has rallied around me as I poked around, asked questions, raised concerns, demanded accountability.

Let me tell you a little story. This was three years ago, after the story broke that there were more than 4200 graves in Vick Cemetery. My mother and I were at Whole Truth restaurant and ran into a woman whose son was my mother’s former student. They chatted a while about where he is now, and I’m looking over at the steam table, when the lady turns to me: “Ain’t you that one always in the paper? About the cemetery?” And I laughed and said, “Yes, ma’am.” She paused and looked right in my eyes and said, “You doing good.”

The men and women of my community have kept me lifted and encouraged. They have been my proxies, my boots on the ground. Have kept eyes on this sacred space. Have learned and taught others about its significance. Have stood up at countless city council meetings to speak truth to power. Have prayed effectually and fervently. And what do such prayers do? AVAILETH MUCH.

So, I’m thankful to everyone. Both the day ones and the Johnny-come-latelys. Those who always believed and those who had to be convinced. Those whose people are buried here, and those who mourn at Maplewood. Setting aside hurts and fears, ignorance and arrogance, misinformation and mutual distrust, we merged and emerged as vindicators of Vick Cemetery.

There is still work to be done. More questions to be answered. What happened to the headstones? How is it that a power line was placed in this cemetery and in Rountree Cemetery in 1997? We’ll get to those answers.

But we asked for a descendant advisory committee. We have one. We asked for interpretive signage and additional ground-penetrating radar and a full survey. They’ve been done. We asked for better communication and increased transparency. Definite improvement. Today we hold space for what has been accomplished. For what we have done – together.

May we continue to walk in our purpose and always remember and honor our dead.

Thank you.

The stunning wreath stand, the memorial white roses, and the headstone that will be placed at the site of the marble vault.