Jessie Wooden sits on a crypt in the Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery in Miami’s Brownsville neighborhood. In Washington, members of a historically Black sorority recruited an expert who helped find the 1919 burial site of one of the sorority’s founders, hidden from view in an overgrown, badly neglected section of Woodlawn Cemetery. “There’s growing awareness among the public that cemeteries …
As these burial grounds for the dead mirrored the racial divisions of the living, Black communities organised to defend the dignity of their deceased and oppose racist cemetery policies. Similar Black cemeteries are scattered throughout the United States, telling the story of the country’s deep past of cemetery segregation. “Even cemeteries became battlegrounds for dignity.” Black communities responded to being …
CHICAGO — As a child, Linda Davis and her mother broke clay pots over the gravesites of their ancestors, allowing the flowers in them to take root. Similar Black cemeteries are scattered throughout the United States, telling the story of the country’s deep past of cemetery segregation. “Even cemeteries became battlegrounds for dignity.” Black communities responded to being barred from …
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