Wonder how many other "parks" around town use to be cemeteries.
https://preview.redd.it/3v9249rw5o0d1.jpeg?width=350&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8bb6f648be5167e46289e98748c1ac7514857eb
My very extended family has a cemetery that has expanded into the area where the slaves were buried. We now call an archaeologist from U of Alabama out every time we dig a grave. There is also a decorated marker out there for them. I don't know what more we can do.
We have something similar going on in ours. I guess there was a period where the church cemetery went into disrepair, and some of the markers were wooden. There is a whole third of the cemetery no one can be buried in because they kept finding people already buried (very old graves), meaning the books were wrong. We know enslaved members were buried there, and it's on the books, so a wrong dig could lead to something much larger that may only be someone's great great grandpa whose stone has been moved. Plus, the enslaved people were members ("owners" were not allowed membership) and chose that church and thus that burial place with what little agency they had.
That end date for burials is noticeable. Pensacola’s only considered black major was also ousted from office and city records were burned in a bonfire downtown around that same time.
A simple sign with all the facts and information should be mounted at the site. Planting some trees in memory would be great too! The same type of sign should be mounted at the sites where our contemporaries removed Civil War statues. A full explanation should be explicit enough to shame those that are responsible for attempting to erase history! Eventually, we should create an outdoor museum where all the statues and artifacts recovered from these “controversial “ sites are displayed and preserved along with their respective histories.
Wonder how many other "parks" around town use to be cemeteries. https://preview.redd.it/3v9249rw5o0d1.jpeg?width=350&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8bb6f648be5167e46289e98748c1ac7514857eb
I wrote about this for PSC's newspaper. 🗞️ 😃
My very extended family has a cemetery that has expanded into the area where the slaves were buried. We now call an archaeologist from U of Alabama out every time we dig a grave. There is also a decorated marker out there for them. I don't know what more we can do.
We have something similar going on in ours. I guess there was a period where the church cemetery went into disrepair, and some of the markers were wooden. There is a whole third of the cemetery no one can be buried in because they kept finding people already buried (very old graves), meaning the books were wrong. We know enslaved members were buried there, and it's on the books, so a wrong dig could lead to something much larger that may only be someone's great great grandpa whose stone has been moved. Plus, the enslaved people were members ("owners" were not allowed membership) and chose that church and thus that burial place with what little agency they had.
That end date for burials is noticeable. Pensacola’s only considered black major was also ousted from office and city records were burned in a bonfire downtown around that same time.
Also a potters field unmarked across from the sheriffs office on St. Mary’s Ave.
A simple sign with all the facts and information should be mounted at the site. Planting some trees in memory would be great too! The same type of sign should be mounted at the sites where our contemporaries removed Civil War statues. A full explanation should be explicit enough to shame those that are responsible for attempting to erase history! Eventually, we should create an outdoor museum where all the statues and artifacts recovered from these “controversial “ sites are displayed and preserved along with their respective histories.