Lane Street Project

Lane Street Project: the problem with “next steps.”

Let’s circle back for a moment to Wilson Communications and Marketing Director Rebecca Agner’s comment about the status of the cemetery ditch incident:

Let me tell you the problem with this.

Pro-blems.

First, “the marker near the ditch” is at least two Vick Cemetery markers uncovered and broken when contractors scraped the ditch bank. It’s also sections of concrete kerbing damaged at the Tate family plot in Odd Fellows.

Let them dismiss that as semantics though. There is a more critical issue.

New South Associates is a highly respected cultural resource management firm. Many regard them as the Southeast’s gold standard for geophysical services like ground-penetrating radar. Kudos to the City for contracting with New South to handle this work, both at Vick Cemetery and, earlier, at the private Farmer family cemetery at the corner of Kenan and Pine Streets downtown (a project no one had to beg them to do.) 

However, for all the expertise it brings, New South is operating at a glaring deficit here: its “additional guidance” on “next steps” comes with no input from or critique by Vick’s essential stakeholders, the descendant community.

Nearly everything we know about the history of Vick Cemetery comes from the collective memories of its descendant community and the six years of my research as documented in Black Wide-Awake. It is we who have cried out for years that graves lie in the public right-of-way and must be located and protected. It is we who have pulled back the curtains on the repeated abuses the City has heaped upon the bones of our ancestors. Yet, even as our fearful prophecies have manifested, we remain shut out of discussion and decision-making about our own dead. The City stands mute, ignoring our pleas for information and demands for inclusion. And New South, under contract to the City, cannot talk out of school.

Whose graves are these? How many others lie next to the road? Who authorized excavation in the ditch? In Odd Fellows Cemetery?

New South and the City will decide what is best for Vick. They will cover up, or move, or whatever, the grave markers broken on December 10, and you and I will find out about it when they feel like updating their webpage to tell us. When it comes to decisions impacting our sacred spaces, Wilson moves in silence. In darkness. Undercover. Black Wide-Awake and Lane Street Project, however, will continue to train a sharp and steady white light on Vick Cemetery and on every person who claims a superior right to decide its future — or who hangs back and lets others exclude us.

Lane Street Project: S6 D1 is in the books!

An enthusiastic thank you to the crew that opened Season 6 of Lane Street Project’s cemetery cleanups yesterday! Workday 1 is in the books!

On a warm, overcast morning, volunteers focused on cutting and clearing wisteria sprouts that sprang up inside the tree line in the off-season. This is critical to prepare for future work at Odd Fellows. Special thanks to newly elected District 6 council member Eduardo Herrera-Picasso, who looked, listened, and learned — and got to work with a string trimmer!

The next volunteer opportunity comes on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday — Monday, January 19! There’s work for everyone, of every ability, and we welcome all!

WE CARE!

Installation by Jen Kehrer. Photo courtesy of Olivia Neeley.

Lane Street Project: thanks again, homeschoolers!

In thanks for their dedication to caring for Odd Fellows Cemetery and learning from elders about the history of their community, I created Children of Lane Street Project badges for the young preservationists of the Homeschoolers Honoring Ancestors chapter of Tarheel Junior Historians.

Yesterday morning, Senior Force members Castonoble Hooks and Briggs Sherwood were on hand at the students’ regular library visit to award their badges. A big thanks to all the H.H.A. kids — and their parents, for nurturing their curiosity and love of history and inviting us to today’s ceremony!

 

Lane Street Project: congrats and gratitude.

I didn’t recognize the phone number, but I answered anyway. I was in a bit of a rush, heading into Home Depot for something or other. The caller was Chris Facey. He’d just started a residency in Wilson with Eyes on Main Street, and Jerome De Perlinghi had suggested he talk to me. I didn’t know it yet, but I was talking to the man who would, while forming an indelible bond with Castonoble Hooks, capture so many beautiful, joyful, sorrowful moments along Lane Street Project’s journey.

I’m so proud that Chris’ work has been included in the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Evidence of Existence on-line exhibit. Chris captured this image during Lane Street Project’s second season — the shaft and pyramidal cap of Henry Tart’s obelisk gleaming dully in a wisteria-draped glade.

Chris has brought honor and recognition to our ancestors. We thank him for his gifts of “art and record” and wish him multifold blessings.

Follow Chris Facey on Instagram @coco.butter.shutter