More from the fine folk over in Statesville.
This clean-lined little newsletter arrived in my email box a few days ago, chock-full of the latest news of the city’s historic African-American cemetery, developments made possible by inspirational public-private partnerships. Here are highlights, and the full issue can be found here.
Be inspired, Wilson.
Wilson keeps taking L’s when it comes to preservation of historic African-American cemeteries. I’d thought the City could seize this opportunity to be a leader in honest, enlightened approaches of addressing uncomfortable historical truths, but that title has been won. I know Wilson gets a little sensitive about Rocky Mount, its progressive neighbor to the north, but facts is facts.
In the 13 February 2022 Rocky Mount Telegram (a time in which Wilson City Council was griping and wringing its hands about spending $30,000 for a GPR survey), “City launches website about Unity Cemetery project”:
“People wanting to know more about Unity Cemetery and the efforts to restore and preserve the historically Black burial ground off East Grand Avenue in the eastern part of the city now have a go-to online link.
“That link, www.unitycemeterync.com, provides the story of Unity Cemetery, with a timeline and with a collection of present-day snapshots of the location. That link also provides contact information for what is being called the Unity Cemetery Restoration and Preservation Project.
“Unity Cemetery was incorporated in 1901 and is 18 acres in size.
“As family members either died or moved away from the Rocky Mount area, the location began looking more like a forest than a burial ground, although there have been cleanup efforts in the more recent past.
“The condition of Unity Cemetery increasingly became an issue in 2020 when resident Samuel Battle kept bringing up the subject during the public input phase of City Council regular meetings.
“Resident Tarrick Pittman began organizing a group that made a community cleanup effort of Unity Cemetery a reality on Feb. 6, 2021.
“Battle and residents Steve Cederberg, Steve Pridgen and Pridgen’s wife, Tracy, also had key roles in the cleanup effort. Other cleanup days followed.
“On March 8, 2021, the City Council spent about an hour of a work session discussing Unity Cemetery and went on to approve the adoption of recommendations by then-City Manager Rochelle Small-Toney and her team.
“Those recommendations included budgeting municipal funds to restore and preserve the burial ground.
“Overall, the long-range municipal capital improvement program, which extends from 2022-26, has $1.45 million in spending programmed for Unity Cemetery. [One. Point. Four. Five. Million.]
“Additionally during an Aug. 9, 2021, City Council work session, former Councilwoman Lois Watkins, as a consultant to the municipality regarding Unity Cemetery, told the council the municipality had successfully obtained extensive numbers of burial records from what was Stokes Mortuary.
“Watkins told the council she and others thought such records maybe were burned, destroyed or lost.
“The new website includes pictures of the Unity Cemetery Restoration and Preservation Project staff.
“That staff is comprised of Watkins, as project manager, Nadia Orton, who is a historian/genealogist, and Hap Turner, who is a heritage researcher.”
Please take a look at this website, folks. Explore it. It is a thing of beauty in both form and substance. Created and maintained by a municipality. Clap your hands for Rocky Mount.
Look at this!
Read the press release:
Can you imagine? I can. But I don’t believe. Not in Wilson, where city leaders won’t even spring for a survey map.
How do we change the narrative for Vick Cemetery?
Another city doing it better than Wilson — Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
Thirteen-acre Oak Grove cemetery was founded about 1886 as a burial ground for African-Americans. The City of Elizabeth City took ownership of the cemetery in 1964, and its newer sections are still open for burials.
In 2021, Elizabeth City officials agreed to help fund an archaeological survey to identify marked and unmarked graves at Old Oak Grove. The $50,800 survey was funded by a $30,480 grant from the state’s Historic Preservation Fund with the remaining $20,320 supplied by the city. [Here’s a takeaway, City of Wilson — there’s grant money out there!]
The first phase of the project included a land survey to mark and record the boundaries of the cemetery. [In other words, unlike Wilson, Elizabeth City had a survey map prepared and recorded.] Industry leaders New South Associates then performed a ground-penetrating radar survey of Old Oak Grove, finding evidence of 5,418 graves, of which 2,331 are unmarked (including some found under dirt paths in the cemetery). New South’s report recommended that Elizabeth City nominate Old Oak Grove for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.
Though I have no doubt the road to enlightened treatment of Old Oak Grove was a stony one to tread, Elizabeth City now understands its value as a selling point for the city. The City’s tourism website devotes a whole page to the site, touting its significance to local history as well as national events. [Looking at you, Wilson County Tourism Development Authority.]
And you, Barton College. Per Visit Elizabeth City:
“In 2021, Elizabeth City State University and the Museum of the Albemarle partnered with the NC African American Heritage Commission (NC AAHC) and the Office of State Archaeology (OSA) to teach preservation techniques focused on Elizabeth City African American cemeteries. At Old Oak Grove Cemetery, techniques and best practices were shared with current ESCU history students on how to photograph and survey the grounds. Proper cleaning methods of gravestones were demonstrated and the ECSU students and professors cleaned six historic markers. These headstones memorialized Civil War veterans who were enlisted in the United States Colored Troops (USCT) Heavy Artillery Regiment.
…
“Cemetery Hours of Operation: Year-round. The cemetery is maintained by the Elizabeth City Department of Parks and Recreation and is open from dawn to dusk. Street parking is available. Please be respectful of these hallowed grounds.”
There are lots of models out here for progressive public-private partnerships and community engagement around neglected and abused African-American cemeteries. The City of Wilson has not chosen one.
Photos courtesy of visitelizabethcity.com.
Let’s talk about a city that’s doing cemetery preservation right.
My mother’s mother was from Statesville in Iredell County, in North Carolina’s western Piedmont. For decades, my great aunt Louise lived at 648 South Green Street, directly across from Statesville’s oldest public African-American burial ground, now known as Green Street Cemetery. I’ve only found three marked graves of my family members there — those of my great-great-grandfather John Walker Colvert, his wife Addie Hampton Colvert, and their daughter Selma E. Colvert — but there are certainly many more. My great-great-great-grandfather Walker Colvert, born on a northern Virginia plantation around 1819 and brought as a child to North Carolina as part of an inheritance. My great-grandfather Lon W. Colvert, a bootlegger turned respectable barber. My grandmother’s half-brother John W. Colvert II and his mother, Josephine Dalton Colvert. My grandmother’s aunts Addie McNeely Smith and Elethea McNeely Weaver and her cousin Irving McNeely Weaver, who was brought home from New Jersey for burial. Maybe her grandfather Henry W. McNeely, born to a slaveowner and his enslaved housekeeper.
The double headstone of John W. and Adeline Hampton Colvert, Green Street Cemetery, Statesville.
With so few grave markers, Green Street Cemetery seems relatively empty, but I have always assumed it was full. A local undertaker told me that, at sunset at the right angle in the right season, the shallow depressions of old graves stand out vividly in the landscape. This year, Iredell County Public Library, Iredell County, the City of Statesville, and the Statesville Chapter of the NAACP have partnered to locate and count Green Street Cemetery’s unmarked graves, to memorialize them, and to erect educational signage at the graveyard.
Imagine that. Local government at the forefront of efforts to preserve, honor and expand knowledge about an old cemetery.
In April, on its Facebook page, the Iredell County Public Library posted that it was “pleased to update the community on the continued preservation efforts at the Green Street Cemetery. Omega Mapping Services conducted a ground-penetrating radar survey from Friday, March 24, to Thursday, March 30. In that time, it has been determined that there are a total of 1,816 burials in the land that was surveyed. Of that number, 1,673 are unmarked, although several of those graves have stones that are covered over and will need to be extracted. The library plans to uncover these important stones in order to obtain vital information. The GPR survey is not complete and Omega will return to finish studying the property after additional clearing of the trees and brush in the extension of the cemetery located behind the old funeral home. [City of Statesville crews did the clearing, and the City’s mayor posted about its role in the project with the hashtag #promisesmadepromiseskept.] The completion of this part of the survey should take place this month.
“In addition to this, we are very excited to invite the community to join us for the next phase of this project through a hands-on program at Green Street Cemetery. As part of the $20,000 grant awarded by NC Humanities to the library for this project, we have purchased stainless metal markers to be installed at every unmarked grave in the Green Street Cemetery in place of the orange flags. This product came to us as a recommendation from the surveyor who has used these markers in other cemeteries. The marker consists of a ten inch (10”) bolt with a three and a half inch (3.5”) disk at the top. Once installed, it will lay flush with the earth allowing maintenance to continue as usual with no disruption or damage to the markers. In time, when the ground cover grows over the markers, they will still be identifiable with a metal detector, similar to markers used by land surveyors. They are easy to install by pushing the bolt into the ground by hand or using rubber mallets. With the amount of rain we are expecting in this area in the coming days, the ground will be soft enough to install these markers. Members of the community are encouraged to participate in this event, especially the descendants of those buried at this site.“
I.C.P.L. hosted meetings throughout late winter and spring to engage the public about the future of Green Street Cemetery and has involved the descendant community not only in planning, but in the execution of plans to memorialize the generations buried there.
Certainly, there are differences between Green Street Cemetery and Vick Cemetery. Green Street never lapsed into a jungle, and the City of Statesville has maintained it since 1961. Green Street’s lost grave markers have fallen to time and the elements, not city-sanctioned removal and destruction. Nonetheless, though it sits in a much more uncomfortable seat vis-a-vis its responsibility for current conditions, the City of Wilson could take a page from Statesville’s book. Viewed cynically, the City has an opportunity to gin up good press (and, maybe, goodwill) with an engaged, enlightened, transparent approach to Vick. Instead, it continues to hide its hand in service of its own agenda. For a city desperate to market itself as a progressive, welcoming, attractive location for new folks and new business, it’s a curious strategy.
It’s also business as usual.
Wilson takes justifiable great pride in Whirligig Park, a burgeoning downtown, the YMCA, the Farmers Market, and the Gillette sports complex among other exciting developments, but is acutely tone-deaf to the perceptions of East Wilson residents that the City’s new prosperity does not extend across the tracks. When boneheaded ideas like closing the Reid Street Center pool (“kids can swim at the Y”) reach the light of day, the City is caught off-guard by the vociferous backlash and immediately backpedals, stuttering and stammering. When New South Associates formally reports to the City that graves lie under its power poles, the City will once again be on its collective back foot.
Seize this opportunity, City of Wilson. Engage the descendant community openly and honestly. Find out what people want to see happen at Vick. Accept responsibility. Listen. Learn. Reflect. Then act in accordance.
For more about the history of Green Street and collaborative efforts to preserve it, see Viewpoint: Recognizing the historical significance of the Green Street Cemetery, http://www.iredellfreenews.com. For coverage of ground-penetrating radar performed there, see Every burial is a story: Survey of Green Street Cemetery uncovering history, http://www.statesville.com; Up to 2,000 unmarked graves uncovered in Statesville, http://www.qcnews.com; and ‘This is holy ground’: Radar survey preserving history at Statesville cemetery, www.spectrumlocalnews.com.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, 2014.
As the wheels begin to turn for Vick Cemetery, let’s flash back three-and-a-half years.
As a representative of the Vick Cemetery descendant community, I continue to seek dialogue with the City on the best path forward for Vick Cemetery and again request transparency and accountability in all matters concerning this space, including an investigation into the whereabouts of the grave markers the City removed from cemetery in or about 1996.
Take the first step with us on the journey to restoring Vick Cemetery to recognition in the community as a sacred space.
Wilson Daily Times, 21 March 2023.
Black Wide-Awake has featured several of Wilson County’s remaining antebellum plantation houses, including the James Scarborough house, built circa 1821, just outside Saratoga.
Now an event space and bed-and-breakfast, “Scarborough House Resort is committed to a long-term and ongoing effort to more deeply understand and respond to the historic role this property contributed to the injustice of slavery, as well as the legacies of enslavement on the Scarborough Plantation. Through engagement with the members of the Preservation of Wilson, collaborative projects with our surrounding community, and continued initiatives of learning and research, the Scarborough House Resort resolves to memorialize and reconcile with the wrongs of the past. We aim to follow a path of love and respect for all humanity, creating an inclusive environment, where all people will feel welcomed.” The site goes on to request that anyone with information, photographs, documents or other artifacts pertaining to Scarborough Plantation or its residents, enslaved or free, to contact PreserveOldWilson@gmail.com or reach out to the Scarborough staff.
I am thrilled and honored that Scarborough House has engaged me to research the property’s African-American past, a first step toward respect and reconciliation. On 22 April 2023 Scarborough House Resort is hosting a tea party to benefit Preservation of Wilson. Guests will enjoy a tree-planting in honor of Earth Day, learn the history of the house and its original inhabitants, and join in the dedication of a bench memorializing the lives of enslaved people who worked its land.
Photo collage courtesy of Scarborough House Resort.
I repped hard for Wide-Awake yesterday at Save Your Spaces Festival, talking about Lane Street Project and the challenges and rewards of African-American cemetery preservation, as well as learning about amazing local projects here in Atlanta from public historians, artists, preservationists, and others of my new “tribe.”
Shouts out to moderator Dr. Shari L. Williams, who spearheads Macon County, Alabama’s The Ridge Archaeological Project, and co-panelist Debra Taylor Gonzalez of Friends of Geer Cemetery, which offers a model for how Lane Street Project might grow and what we might achieve.
Deep appreciation to the visionary Nedra Deadwyler, founder of Civil Bikes and Save Your Spaces, for pulling me into this conversation with gentle prods and encouragement over the past year or so. My acute awareness that I am neither a public historian nor preservationist by training has had me hiding my light, but this experience reassured me of the value I bring to the work. I’ll move forward with a steadier voice and better tools to help save the historic spaces that mean most to me.
I’m honored to join these amazing women at Save Your Spaces Cultural Heritage and Historic Preservation Festival to talk about successes and challenges in the critical work of preserving African-American cemeteries.
If you’re intrigued by local history, have stories to tell or histories to preserve, are curious and want to learn more about cultural heritage and create ways to preserve it, please join us March 4 at Create ATL, 900 Murphy Avenue SW, Atlanta.