02:01 - We're joined

02:01 - by Steven Berg, a history professor at Shippensburg University.

02:04 - Welcome to our show. Oh. Thank you. It's great to be here.

02:07 - How many African American burial grounds are there across Pennsylvania?

02:11 - That's a great question.

02:12 - And it's the perfect question to start with.

02:15 - We over the last several

02:18 - years, my students and I and others around

02:21 - the state have been trying to to answer that question.

02:24 - And one of the things is that it's challenging

02:29 - because there are a lot of small cemeteries that have been lost,

02:34 - destroyed.

02:35 - And so at this point, we estimate there's around 160

02:39 - African American cemeteries that we're aware of,

02:42 - and roughly about 30 of those have been destroyed.

02:45 - So there's about 120 or so that are intact in one state or another.

02:54 - All across the state.

02:55 - And we believe that there's probably every

02:59 - when we started trying to count them, we were discovering

03:04 - quite a few every week.

03:06 - This point, we're still discovering and learning about new ones,

03:09 - you know, a few a year or so, that number is going to keep going up.

03:13 - The other thing I would just mention is,

03:16 - in particular slave burial grounds, places

03:20 - where enslaved people were buried are even harder to locate.

03:24 - And so that's going to be something that we really want to be able to, to,

03:28 - focus on as well.

03:29 - But right now, I'd say there's about 160 that we're aware of, about

03:34 - slightly over 120 that are intact and still exist.

03:38 - How do you locate the cemeteries?

03:40 - It was,

03:42 - really,

03:44 - big project and something I've been doing at Shippensburg with,

03:49 - my students in the applied history program.

03:53 - Also, I'm involved with an organization called Pennsylvania Howard Grounds,

03:57 - and we have been working with partners all across the state.

04:01 - We've been reaching out to historical societies.

04:04 - We've been looking through old guides that were,

04:08 - you know, perhaps published years or decades ago.

04:12 - In the 1930s, there was a, New Deal program

04:16 - that was trying to locate cemeteries that were associated,

04:20 - where veterans were buried.

04:22 - And so there were that was a big documentation effort.

04:26 - And then the other thing is people just call.

04:28 - They found something in their yard.

04:30 - They were wandering in the woods, they were doing

04:33 - research and stumbled upon this place.

04:36 - And they ask if we're familiar with it.

04:39 - And, if not, we add it to our list and try to do what we can to help

04:44 - preserve it and, reclaim some of its history.

04:48 - And you mentioned some of them were destroyed.

04:50 - Yes. Why?

04:53 - How much time do we have?

04:55 - So they were destroyed for lots of different reasons.

04:58 - I mean, the biggest reason is simply that,

05:03 - in a lot of cases, they were not

05:06 - the populations that had been associated with them.

05:10 - In some cases, the population had left

05:13 - or, the African-Americans who were involved with the cemeteries

05:18 - that community had, shrunk or people had moved away.

05:22 - But in some cases, especially in the period after,

05:26 - in the mid 20th century,

05:29 - as we were seeing things like Urban Renewal Project and,

05:33 - slum clearance projects and efforts to beautify communities,

05:38 - sometimes African-American cemeteries were targeted as something

05:42 - that was considered to be blight and they were removed.

05:46 - So can I give you a couple quick examples?

05:49 - In eastern Pennsylvania,

05:51 - there was a African-American cemetery that in the 1920s,

05:57 - was paved

05:57 - over and turned into a playground by the city of Easton,

06:01 - in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

06:04 - In the 1970s, the borough of Carlisle,

06:08 - targeted the the,

06:11 - historic Lincoln Cemetery that was in

06:14 - downtown Carlisle

06:16 - and removed the tombstones and wanted to turn it into a playground.

06:20 - And the largest cemetery in Pittsburgh, which was the Lincoln, also called

06:25 - the Lincoln Cemetery, was first,

06:28 - partially destroyed to build a baseball field and then became

06:33 - completely destroyed for the city's first,

06:36 - public housing project.

06:39 - Close to, in Steelton, Pennsylvania.

06:43 - The, the Midland Cemetery, which is a really interesting historic cemetery.

06:48 - At one point, they decided to straighten the road

06:51 - and put part of the road right over the the historic African-American cemetery

06:56 - that was there.

06:57 - So I could literally give you examples for the next half hour.

07:01 - But, there's just been a lot of reasons.

07:04 - And one of the things that's important is that when the,

07:10 - Historic

07:11 - Preservation Act of 1966 was created

07:14 - and the National Register of Historic Places was created,

07:18 - cemeteries were not considered something that really should be protected

07:23 - in the same way as other historic buildings or landscapes.

07:26 - They were seen as something that local communities really should take.

07:29 - The responsible for.

07:31 - And because there were so many of them and everybody considers them important,

07:35 - there was much less protection put in place, at the outset.

07:39 - And Pennsylvania still has pretty weak laws protecting historic cemeteries.

07:45 - Can you take us to an African-American cemetery?

07:47 - If we went to one, what would we see? Okay.

07:51 - So I'm going to take you to the the Locust Grove Cemetery

07:54 - in Shippensburg because it's the one that I've been working with the longest.

07:58 - And, probably the most familiar with.

08:02 - So there's all different kinds, the,

08:06 - the African American cemetery, some if you would visit.

08:10 - They seem almost like postage stamps.

08:12 - There's a, one cemetery in,

08:16 - I can actually, there's two examples of this.

08:19 - There's one in, Fayetteville

08:22 - or Green Township in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, another in Lancaster,

08:27 - where it's literally if you went there, it's a handful,

08:32 - in one cases, just a handful of tombstones in Green Township.

08:37 - It's actually two tombstones,

08:40 - literally on someone's lawn.

08:42 - So there had once been a cemetery.

08:45 - It's chances are that

08:46 - there were more burials, but at this point they're really small.

08:50 - Those are some sort of historic fragments of cemeteries

08:53 - that are still intact.

08:56 - The largest number of cemeteries are associated with

09:00 - African-American community.

09:02 - Is that largely developed in the 19th century?

09:06 - Those tended to be, African-Americans who were either freed

09:11 - or came to Pennsylvania for established rural settlements.

09:15 - There's a huge number of those in Chester County, Lancaster County,

09:21 - and those would be

09:22 - usually places that were the center of that rural African-American community.

09:27 - So there was the cemetery and quite often

09:31 - what we'll discover is when you go to those sites,

09:34 - you will also find either the remnants or in some cases,

09:38 - an actual church building or archeological remains from a church building,

09:42 - because that was really that commonly held ground,

09:46 - served that rural African-American community.

09:50 - Shippensburg I got involved with the Locust Grove Cemetery in 2003.

09:56 - It's a cemetery that dates back over 200 years.

10:00 - We believe that it was intact when Edward Shippen was still alive.

10:06 - And, as the founder of Shippensburg,

10:09 - it was set aside because there was an African-American community there,

10:13 - which was first largely enslaved.

10:17 - But in 1780, Pennsylvania passed the act

10:20 - for gradual, emancipation, abolition of slavery.

10:24 - And so, starting in 1780, the enslaved

10:28 - people who were living in Shippensburg were gradually,

10:31 - many of them gaining their freedom and new generations were being born.

10:35 - And so there was a cemetery created as a burial ground for that community.

10:42 - In the

10:43 - early 19th century, a church was also built on that same ground.

10:48 - That church lasted over 100 years.

10:50 - And then today there's nothing left of it, but, little open

10:53 - space at the front of the cemetery.

10:56 - But what you would notice is if you're somebody who goes,

11:00 - I don't know, do you go to a lot of cemeteries?

11:02 - I do not know.

11:04 - If you if you go to a lot of cemeteries,

11:06 - one of the things that is striking,

11:09 - for a lot of the small rural cemeteries

11:12 - is that there tends to be sort of a smaller scale.

11:16 - The tombstones tend to be smaller.

11:19 - One thing that,

11:21 - many people will notice is that there seems to be

11:24 - a lot of open space in the cemetery.

11:28 - Part of the reason for that is that in the 19th century,

11:33 - there were some distinct African-American

11:36 - funerary customs that were different than what,

11:40 - say, white cemeteries were practicing at the same time.

11:44 - So, for example, was very common to mark graves

11:47 - with things that were called like grave offerings or,

11:53 - grave dressings.

11:55 - Basically, it could be a variety of things, often

11:58 - things associated with the person who died that were left on the grave

12:02 - and sort of marked out the grave area when the burial took place.

12:07 - It was also common to mark graves, with plants.

12:12 - So things like yucca and myrtle

12:14 - were used to mark grave sites.

12:17 - Something else that was really common was also to use wooden grave markers,

12:22 - a lot of which over time rotted away if they weren't maintained.

12:26 - So today, if you went to an African American cemetery,

12:29 - one thing that you'd notice is the smaller tombstones.

12:32 - A lot of them seem to have more open space.

12:36 - Another reason that is, is that because a lot of them are quite old

12:39 - and some have not, you know, been cared for for a number of years.

12:44 - Here in Pennsylvania, we have this, phenomena

12:48 - that we have these very cold winters where the ground freezes.

12:52 - And for the smaller tombstones, they actually get lifted up by the frost.

12:55 - And then when it melts or the fall comes,

12:58 - the tombstones will sink down a bit.

13:01 - If you repeat that for years and decades and are not actively trying

13:06 - to, you know, reset the stones, they actually will sink into the ground.

13:10 - In Shippensburg, where I was working with the Locust Grove Cemetery,

13:13 - we actually found a tombstone that was a foot below

13:16 - the surface that had just sunk straight down in York,

13:22 - North York,

13:23 - where the Lebanon Cemetery is located, the Friends of Lebanon Cemetery,

13:28 - as part of their restoration effort over the last several years,

13:32 - uncovered more than 800 tombstones that had sunk below the surface.

13:37 - So that open space is something that is, really quite familiar.

13:42 - The other thing that is striking,

13:45 - if you went to one of the African American cemeteries, people are often struck

13:50 - by the large number of military

13:53 - veterans, tombstones that are in the cemeteries.

13:56 - And part of that is the fact that because you had these other traditions

14:01 - of marking graves in less visible ways or not,

14:05 - with sort of traditional, commercially produced grave markers,

14:10 - after the Civil War, Pennsylvania was the state

14:15 - that had the largest number, the state in the north that had the

14:18 - largest number of African-Americans served in the Civil War, 8612

14:25 - plus others who served in the Navy.

14:28 - And because of that, those men who had served

14:33 - it turns out that there were programs after the Civil War,

14:36 - both a federal program by the War Department that would ensure

14:40 - any veteran could apply to have a tombstone on their grave.

14:44 - And then Pennsylvania itself implemented a state program to ensure that any veteran

14:49 - who needed it could have a free tombstone, provided and also burial.

14:54 - So what that means is that in African-American cemeteries,

14:57 - because there's a large number of African Americans who are veterans,

15:02 - both in the Civil War and in subsequent conflicts,

15:05 - you'll see a lot of these veteran tombstones.

15:08 - And there's some cemeteries that I visited

15:12 - where literally,

15:14 - the only tombstones there are for veterans.

15:17 - And if you didn't know, you think, wow,

15:18 - this is a tiny cemetery with only 1 or 2 people buried there.

15:23 - But in fact, it's often a much, much larger cemetery.

15:28 - And there have been cemeteries all over,

15:31 - the Brownsville Church of God Cemetery in Franklin County.

15:35 - We did ground penetrating radar at the Locust Grove Cemetery

15:39 - in Shippensburg, the in Columbia at the Zion Hill Cemetery.

15:44 - They did ground penetrating radar.

15:46 - And what's amazing is just what looks like a fairly small cemetery.

15:50 - Once you look what's under the ground, you discover that

15:54 - there's far more burials than it might appear.

15:57 - So those are some of the things that you would notice.

16:00 - Are there any unmarked graves? So

16:04 - that's

16:06 - from, from

16:08 - you walking into the cemetery, you would think. Yes.

16:11 - There's a lot of unmarked graves.

16:14 - Could they have been marked in the past?

16:16 - Yes. With, like, a wooden marker of or a vegetable marker

16:21 - or a planting or grave goods.

16:24 - But for us today, yes.

16:25 - If you go to the a lot of the African-American cemeteries,

16:30 - there are a lot of burials that are there that do not have what we today

16:34 - would expect to see in terms of a stone,

16:38 - grave marker marking those graves.

16:42 - Just to add one other thing,

16:45 - it's really, really interesting as you visit some of the older cemeteries

16:49 - because, one of the things that you will discover

16:54 - is that there were also some other, traditions in terms of marking

16:58 - graves, one which is something that's not unique to Pennsylvania.

17:02 - There's a historian, named Lynn Rainville, or she's an archeologist

17:07 - or an anthropologist who's done work in Virginia,

17:11 - that there are

17:12 - a lot of traditions of marking graves with field stones,

17:17 - stones that might just be found or shaped

17:19 - using hand tools and, even,

17:24 - in Lancaster County saw a lot of these,

17:28 - just stones

17:29 - that have been shaped into, often they'll be triangular

17:33 - with a point on the top, or they may be rectangular.

17:38 - And placed upright in the ground.

17:40 - The I think it's the Bethel A.M.E.

17:42 - church,

17:44 - in I'm going to get the community wrong,

17:47 - in Lancaster County, northern Lancaster County

17:50 - has a couple of those in its, churchyard. I

17:55 - in the fall 2022, I was making a survey

17:58 - of cemeteries around the state and went to what's called the Gaines

18:03 - Family Cemetery, which is in Clinton County.

18:07 - And it's it's probably one of the most remote places I've gone.

18:13 - It was a, settlement that was established by two

18:17 - African-American men who had been enslaved in Virginia

18:21 - and basically traveled as far north as they could go.

18:25 - They ended up at today's,

18:28 - it's part of the, Sproul State Forest.

18:32 - And they created a homestead there.

18:34 - And as part of that homestead, there's a cemetery,

18:37 - and much of the cemetery is just, you know, it's in the forest,

18:43 - the ground is moss, and there's these small brick,

18:47 - rectangular pieces of sandstone that were fashioned into headstones.

18:52 - So it's it's,

18:54 - Are there unmarked graves?

18:56 - Yeah, but there's also graves that are marked in ways

18:59 - that if you're if you're not looking, you might think that's just a stone or,

19:02 - you know, that's just a, lily growing up from the ground.

19:06 - But they're actually marked graves as well.

19:09 - Why are African-American cemeteries different or separate?

19:14 - Okay. So

19:17 - African-American cemeteries are separate.

19:20 - And this is something that goes back,

19:24 - as far back as the history of Pennsylvania.

19:28 - In general, most people,

19:31 - you know, don't think about the fact that,

19:34 - Pennsylvania was,

19:37 - did have slavery from the beginning

19:39 - of the almost from the earliest days of the colony.

19:44 - And slaves were often buried in separate areas.

19:48 - And part of it was, an act of racial separation.

19:54 - Racial segregation, that there was,

19:57 - interest in having blacks and whites,

20:01 - at rest in separate places after they died.

20:04 - So segregation in death.

20:07 - As we get into the 19th century, one of the things that you will see

20:12 - is that as public cemeteries are being created,

20:16 - they will have specific language

20:19 - in their, documents that bring them into creation there by laws or,

20:25 - they're incorporate in documents that say

20:27 - that this is a place only for the burial of whites.

20:32 - And so you will

20:33 - see that in Shippensburg, for example.

20:36 - When the Spring Hill Cemetery was founded in 1861 as the public cemetery,

20:42 - it included language that it was only for white burials.

20:46 - And that was something that continued until the end of the 20th century.

20:50 - So we did have,

20:52 - segregation.

20:53 - But also I think that because there were,

20:57 - there was discrimination, there was racial prejudice

21:01 - in Pennsylvania, African-Americans chose to create their own cemeteries

21:07 - as places that they could control, that they could own,

21:11 - that they could ensure that people would be buried

21:14 - in a dignified way, that they would be maintained as a place,

21:19 - where the people's loved ones could rest in perpetuity,

21:23 - and that it really was a space where whatever

21:25 - was going on in the rest of society, this is a place

21:28 - where African-Americans could be with honor and dignity and peace.

21:33 - It's one of my favorite examples.

21:36 - There were exceptions.

21:38 - There's a lot of

21:39 - cemeteries around the state,

21:43 - that didn't discriminate based on race.

21:46 - The Shriner Cemetery, Lancaster

21:49 - was open to people of any race.

21:53 - But my favorite example

21:54 - is the, Lincoln Cemetery in Harrisburg,

21:58 - which is a huge cemetery founded after the Civil War.

22:02 - It was founded in part because the African-American cemeteries

22:06 - that existed in Harrisburg, were crowded

22:10 - and really in terrible condition.

22:14 - The Harrisburg Cemetery was created,

22:17 - which did not allow African-Americans to be buried in it.

22:20 - And they also did not allow the creation of a separate

22:23 - African-American section within that cemetery.

22:27 - So the African-American community with,

22:30 - the assistance of,

22:32 - white folks in, in Harrisburg, created the Lincoln Cemetery.

22:36 - And in their founding documents, they're explicit that,

22:42 - anyone can be buried in their cemetery.

22:45 - And there's a great comment where they say,

22:47 - you know, no white person should feel like they'll be excluded from this cemetery.

22:51 - So they really were committed to this idea that even though it was primarily

22:56 - an African-American burial ground, that anyone was welcome on the grounds.

23:01 - Let's let's talk about them today.

23:03 - What are some of the common threats that are facing African-American cemeteries?

23:08 - Okay.

23:09 - So one of the things that

23:12 - I would say, there's there's a number of threats,

23:16 - a lot of the cemeteries today are maintained

23:20 - by a really diverse group of people.

23:23 - Sometimes it's descendants

23:26 - who are taking care of the cemetery,

23:29 - and will have either a local group or committee that is doing the work.

23:33 - Sometimes it will be, municipality, sometimes it will be,

23:39 - a Boy Scout troop or veterans association.

23:43 - It's really, you know, a nonprofit.

23:46 - There are a number of, cemeteries that are sort of legacy corporations.

23:52 - The, the largest African-American cemetery

23:55 - in the state, which is the Eden Cemetery,

23:58 - in Collinsville, outside of Philadelphia,

24:01 - has over nine 90,000 burials.

24:04 - And it's, you know, very,

24:07 - supported by a corporation

24:09 - and a board to, to maintain that site in that work.

24:14 - But for a lot of the cemeteries, there's so many

24:17 - that it's a person or a couple of people

24:20 - who are trying to maintain these places.

24:23 - Often they will have no perpetual

24:27 - care fund whatsoever that they often were,

24:30 - supported by a church or a, fraternal organization.

24:35 - Many of those don't exist anymore.

24:37 - And so there is,

24:40 - one of the things that we see, and this is I'm speaking now working.

24:44 - I'm a member of the board of an organization called Pennsylvania

24:48 - Hallowed Grounds that started in 2013.

24:53 - Barbara Barksdale is the chair.

24:54 - She's just a phenomenal force of nature and someone who's been doing

24:59 - cemetery preservation work at her own cemetery and in Steelton,

25:05 - since the 1990s, over 30 years.

25:08 - And, the,

25:15 - She, the Pennsylvania hallowed grounds has been trying

25:19 - to really do what we can to support these cemetery stewards around the state.

25:24 - They are,

25:27 - some of them are aging out.

25:28 - Some of them are get, you know, sick care

25:32 - for family members and simply the the finances.

25:36 - And, the protection of these cemeteries is a really challenging thing.

25:40 - What are the different roles in historic preservation

25:43 - between the federal and local governments?

25:45 - Okay.

25:47 - So the federal government

25:50 - does not tend to do a huge amount

25:53 - in terms of preserving something like an African-American cemetery.

25:58 - Really the only protection that would come from the federal government,

26:02 - would be if a site is either

26:06 - designated as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places

26:10 - or listed on the National Register, and then the only real protection

26:14 - that comes is that if any kind of federally licensed

26:18 - or federally funded project were to threaten that site,

26:22 - then it has to go through a process which is called the section 106 process,

26:26 - where they evaluate what the potential threat would be.

26:30 - The state government does.

26:32 - There are laws on the books in Pennsylvania about,

26:37 - the potential, you know, if you were to damage a historic cemetery.

26:41 - But those, I would say are not,

26:46 - frequently enforced.

26:49 - So otherwise, a lot of the, the protection for African-American cemeteries

26:53 - in the state either comes from local governments.

26:57 - But it really comes much more from community members,

27:01 - stepping up who are interested in protecting them,

27:03 - who call the police if something's going on.

27:07 - And who often are working through a lot of sweat equity

27:10 - to try to maintain the grounds, repair the tombstones, clean the tombstones.

27:16 - And share the history of these sites with the broader public.

27:20 - For our last question, I'd like to talk about why is it important

27:23 - to preserve African-American cemeteries?

27:26 - Yeah, I would say for me, there's a there's several reasons.

27:30 - A lot of folks who got

27:31 - involved with Pennsylvania hallowed grounds or, cemetery preservation

27:36 - do it because they have a personal connection, a passion.

27:40 - So there's a lot of descendants, and these are places that are really important

27:44 - to the people who have family and relatives buried in these cemeteries.

27:49 - Other people are really passionate because they are the places

27:52 - where African-American veterans are buried.

27:55 - And we want to honor those veterans and their service

27:58 - and ensure that they, have eternal rest.

28:01 - That's dignified, you know, marked by dignity and that,

28:05 - their service is honored.

28:08 - Other people will say that, you know, these are really unique artifacts

28:12 - that were often created by African-Americans, managed

28:15 - by African-Americans, maintained by African-Americans,

28:18 - and that really reflect the culture and traditions of African-Americans

28:23 - in the state.

28:25 - They are kind of amazing landscapes.

28:27 - And I think for me, when I've brought students there

28:30 - or people to visit these sites, they're you

28:34 - step onto the ground and you're connecting with a very unique piece of history.

28:39 - And the other thing that I think is so important is because

28:42 - there are so many of them, and they're often in communities

28:45 - that may not currently have African-American communities.

28:49 - They are markers, on the landscape

28:53 - of a really rich and important part of our state's history.

28:59 - And they mark that and they, they are a place where we can go

29:02 - and discover that history and remind us of how much African-American history

29:08 - is deeply intertwined and really is,

29:12 - Pennsylvania and American history.

29:15 - We've been speaking with Stephen Burg, a history professor

29:17 - at Shippensburg University. Thank you for your time today.

29:20 - Oh. Thank you.

29:20 - It's been a real pleasure. Hey.