At a weekend news conference announcing legislation to provide federal support for historic African-American burial grounds, 4th District U.S. Rep. Donald McEachin shared a personal anecdote about the significance of the bill he is co-sponsoring with fellow Democratic Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina’s 12th District.
“For the better part of 50 years, I was like, ‘Well, yeah, I’m from Richmond — but I’m not really a Richmonder, because I can’t get past my grandfather,’ ” McEachin said of his family’s ancestry at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. But thanks to the commitment of volunteers such as the Friends of East End and years of work to raise awareness around Richmond’s African-American burial sites, he learned that his family has been in the River City since just after the Revolutionary War.
“I can trace my family all the way back to that Gravel Hill community of slaves who were freed by a Quaker who died and left them as free people,” he said, “But it’s that sort of connectedness that this has provided me, and hopefully will provide others, that ‘You know what? I really am Richmond — I’ve been here for a while — my people have been here for a while,’ and it’s such a magnificent feeling, just to share.”
McEachin and Adams’ African American Burial Grounds Network Act, if passed, would provide federal funding for voluntary initiatives such as those that led to the cleanup of Richmond’s historic East End and Evergreen cemeteries.
Both Evergreen and East End burial sites are in McEachin’s congressional district, which stretches south from Richmond to the North Carolina line, taking in the Chesapeake area. The cemeteries were established as tangible pillars of achievement and dignity for residents who built the sacred grounds for their communities after Reconstruction, but the legacy of Jim Crow-era laws enforcing segregation, combined with insufficient resources for upkeep, have taken a significant toll on the sites.
If passed, the legislation would also establish a National Park Service program through coordination with state, local, private and nonprofit partners to create a voluntary network of historic African-American burial grounds while also providing information, technical support and grants to organizations and institutions to aid in the research, identification, preservation and restoration of sites within the network.
Read the entire article at Richmond Magazine.