A crumbling African-American cemetery in Georgetown and a vacant embassy building in Sheridan-Kalorama are among the six properties highlighted on this year’s “Most Endangered Places in Washington” list.

The D.C. Preservation League has released the list annually since 1996 to publicize notable sites in the city threatened by neglect, demolition or alteration. The league says this strategy has achieved some success — several “Most Endangered” properties from years past have since been restored or preserved, including the Howard Theatre and the D.C. War Memorial.

For the 2012 list, all but one of the sites are located in Northwest D.C., including two in Georgetown.

The Mount Zion Cemetery is tucked behind an apartment complex in northern Georgetown, adjacent to the better-known and -maintained Oak Hill Cemetery.

Technically, the property at 27th and Q streets comprises two burial grounds — the original Old Methodist Burying Ground, which dates back to 1808, and the Female Union Band Cemetery, established in 1842.

The site, recognized as one of the oldest remaining African-American cemeteries in Washington, is “now in a state of disrepair,” according to the preservation league. “[H]eadstones are broken or missing, vegetation grows unchecked, and the sign marking the cemetery has disappeared.”

A board of trustees, however, hopes the preservation league’s attention will help speed its planned restoration and improvements at the memorial park. “We feel like it’s going to enable us to proceed with seeking grants and other sources of funding to develop a vision for the area and try to restore it to its historical purpose of honoring our deceased,” said board member Neville Waters, who has ancestral links to the cemetery.

Read the rest of the story . . .

The fence has been there as long as anyone locally can remember. It stayed up, and presumably was replaced a few times, after the U.S. military was integrated in 1948, after the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional in 1954 and after the Mansfield schools were forcibly integrated in 1965.

The U.S. even elected a half-black president in 2008.

Yet the fence is still there.

Plenty of people in Mansfield, one of the fastest-growing cities in Tarrant County and one that is increasingly diverse in its racial and ethnic makeup, probably aren’t even aware of the fence or paid any mind to the statement it has made for so many years.

But some longtime residents, particularly blacks, want it gone as a different kind of statement.

“It’s symbolic,” said Brenda Norwood, a retired teacher who with her husband started a local Juneteenth celebration more than 20 years ago. “It represents separatism. There’s no place for it, not in this time and age. It needs to come down.”

Whether it does anytime soon is still unknown.

The fence sits on property owned by the Mansfield Cemetery Association, a nonprofit organization that owns and maintains the graveyard, and that organization has not made its feelings known publicly.

“We have not discussed it,” said Jo Ann Harris, president of the association. “It had never been brought to us before [until last month]. Until the association has a chance to talk about it, there’s nothing to say.”

Mansfield Mayor David Cook said he would like the fence removed, but that’s only a personal position, not one the city can do anything about.

“It’s a barrier that needs to be removed,” Cook said. “In today’s society, I would like to see one big community cemetery. But I don’t believe there is anything the city can do about a private property owner issue. I can facilitate the dialogue, as an attorney and a certified mediator. I would be glad to utilize those skills to get those two associations working together to resolve it for the best.”

Generations past

The small “colored” cemetery dates to the early 1870s on land believed to be donated by Ralph Man, half of the pair who founded the town. The Mansfield Cemetery, on much larger property to the south, is about the same age and is courtesy of a similar gift from Man. Both graveyards are just south of downtown.

A simple sign overlooking the black cemetery calls it the Mansfield Community Cemetery. The word colored has been painted over.

The cemetery for blacks is not particularly organized, with graves and headstones placed in most cases wherever the family wanted. Over the years, nature took over a portion of the cemetery and obscured many graves, some of them marked only with a simple rock by a family who could afford no more.

Several freed slaves are buried in the cemetery, as well as generations of old Mansfield black families who worked hard, in anonymity and without the benefit of much schooling.

“My mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, an uncle and aunt are all here,” said Elliott Lawson, 85, who grew up in Mansfield. “My grandfather came here as a slave. He was bought off a man named Lawson, and he kept the name.”

The cemetery is not used as often anymore and is not nearly as popular with black families as Cedar Hill Cemetery and Skyvue Memorial Gardens. Lawson, for instance, will be buried at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery because of his service in the Army in World War II.

Black families who have lived in Mansfield for many years said they’ve never known a black resident to be buried in the Mansfield Cemetery, even though they are presumably entitled. More than one longtime resident said they would never ask to be buried there, not even now, simply because “it’s just understood,” said Norman Norwood, the husband of Brenda Norwood.

Lingering memories

Mansfield bears racial scars, the worst from the 1950s and ’60s when conflict erupted over integration of the public schools, and a pervasive sense of an east-west divide — the west being the original “colored” section of town — has lingered long past those stormy days.

The city is a much different place now, and it is likely that many of its 56,000 residents know nothing of that era.

The explosive population growth in the last 20 years has produced a city in which a third of its residents are black, Hispanic or Asian.

Two weekends ago, blacks and whites from numerous churches celebrated jointly at the Juneteenth celebration marking the day slaves in Texas received news of their freedom, and city leaders have worked to mend relations in part by acknowledging the ugly parts of history.

Similarly, the black cemetery has undergone a transformation in recent months.

It got a sprucing up by community volunteers, a new gated entrance and a brick pavilion, all efforts spurred by Pastor Michael Evans from Bethlehem Baptist Church, one of the oldest black churches in Tarrant County.

He, along with members of the black cemetery association, met in May with members of the Mansfield Cemetery Association to ask whether they would bring the fence down amid the renewed discussion on race relations and history.

Evans said the meeting caused “a bit of angst and confusion,” although he said he has “genuine affection” for the volunteers with the Mansfield Cemetery Association.

“I honestly believe that there was and is a remnant of individuals who did not know or understand what that dividing line was for,” Evans said. “It has been expressed to them what that fence symbolizes. Our hope now is that the seeds of knowledge have been planted, and the individuals will come to learn and understand the meaning of the fence and why it’s offensive.

“We hope that calm, cool heads will prevail, and the fence will come down as a joint act between both associations.”

Chris Vaughn, 817-390-7547

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/06/28/3186653/in-mansfield-fence-dividing-white.html#ixzz1RkzIzIKp

The Lincoln Memorial Cemetery is the oldest African-American cemetery in Springfield.

It opened in 1919 as a result of “separate but equal” laws.

It’s a cemetery for several prominent African Americans, including veterans, ministers and educators, all from the Ozarks.

Most of the more than 300 people that are buried in the cemetery are African Americans.

Court decisions in the mid-1950′s opened Lincoln Memorial to all races.

The Central High School Class of 1962 dedicated a flag pole to the cemetery.

Source: http://articles.ky3.com/2011-07-09/oldest-african-american-cemetery_29756956

The recently formed McDowell Cemetery Association Inc. is committed to the present and future maintenance of Glades Cemetery on Nix Creek Road, McDowell Cemetery on Westbrook Drive and Morehead Cemetery on Morehead Road. Glades and McDowell cemeteries are being maintained by the association, and state inmates were recently brought in to clean up Morehead Cemetery.

Larry Boyce, president of the association, and City Councilman Billy Martin, a member, said they are asking for the public’s help in this worthwhile effort, especially those who have relatives laid to rest in those cemeteries. They, too, have family members who are buried there.

“We are asking individuals and families who have burial plots or family members buried in any of these three cemeteries to consider making annual donations or contributions to the help cover the cost of maintaining and improving these sacred properties in our community,” reads a letter from the McDowell Cemetery Association.

“We feel it necessary to address this situation now for fear of all our African-American cemeteries ultimately deteriorating and becoming overgrown like the Morehead City Cemetery,” the letter added. “This is our mission, to see that our deceased loved ones are treated with the love and the respect they so richly deserve.”

In January 2010, The McDowell News reported about the overgrown conditions at the old Morehead Cemetery. For many years, the old Peavine railroad line separated the historically black Morehead Cemetery from the historically white Oak Grove Cemetery, which is owned and maintained by the city.

By January of last year, the graveyard, which covers 3 1/2 acres, had become badly overgrown with weeds, brush, trees and other vegetation. A resident of the Morehead community, who asked not to be identified, said this final resting place for so many people should get better attention.

Many of the headstones were hard to read even in the dead of winter because they were so covered up with vegetation. Rutherford, Swepson, Forney, Scott, Carson and Greenlee are just some of the names that can be found on the markers in Morehead Cemetery. Several tombstones contain dates from the 1800s. Several veterans are laid to rest there.

Martin said at the time he hoped the place could be cleaned up and restored to a place of respect and dignity.

“We went back in the winter and it was a jungle,” said Martin on Thursday. “It’s so old that nobody remembers how people started getting buried there.”

Last year, Yeoman Owens of Washington, D.C. visited his hometown of Marion for the 100th anniversary of Addie’s Chapel United Methodist Church. He wanted to visit the gravesite of a relative buried in Morehead Cemetery, but he was unable to reach the graveyard due to its overgrown condition. Owens brought his disappointment to Boyce, who spearheaded the formation of the McDowell Cemetery Association, which will also maintain Glades and McDowell cemeteries.

“The organization has assumed these responsibilities to ensure proper maintenance of these three cemeteries both now and in the future,” read a statement.

The effort recently got a much needed boost from the inmate work program. The local prison work unit cleaned approximately 60 percent of the brush and vegetation that had covered up Morehead Cemetery. This work was done in April, May and maybe in June, according to Boyce.

However, the state General Assembly halted the work of all the prison inmate labor units throughout North Carolina.

“The McDowell prison work unit was given one week to wrap up any ongoing projects and chose the Morehead Cemetery to get as much work done as possible,” read the statement from the association. “If the concept of prison work units is ever re-established by the legislature, it is our hope they will help us finish the work on the Morehead Cemetery.”

Boyce and Martin said they appreciate the help of the local prison work unit, especially Linda Paquin, unit manager of Marion Minimum Security Unit; Sgt. Chris Revis; and Sid Harkleroad, administrator of Marion Correctional Institution.

In addition, Glades and McDowell cemeteries need attention. The grass at those two places is mowed and burials still take place there. But a strong storm brought down a huge tree at Glades Cemetery and it broke some of the old tombstones. A lightning bolt split a tree at McDowell Cemetery in two.

“To keep it going, it is going to take a big effort,” said Boyce. “The problem is how can we maintain it?”

The McDowell Cemetery Association has no sources of revenue and is asking folks to help out with this effort, especially those who have relatives buried there.

“We are also asking residents or businesses in McDowell County who might be sympathetic with our cause to please consider a contribution,” reads a statement from the association.

The association also appreciates the assistance of City Manager Bob Boyette, the McDowell Trails Association, Little & Lattimore law firm, R.L. Greene Surveying & Mapping, PA and McDowell County Mapping Office in maintaining the properties and doing the legal work.

A fund has been set up at First Citizens Bank. Donations can be made to the McDowell Cemetery Association Inc. through the bank at 1570 N. Main St., P.O. Box 609, Marion, N.C. Donations can also be sent to Larry Boyce at P.O. Box 1913, Marion, N.C. 28752 or to Billy Martin at 350 Holly Hill Drive, Marion, N.C. 28752. For more information, call 724-4612 or 652-5506.

Source: http://www2.mcdowellnews.com/news/2011/jul/09/group-seeks-help-refurbishing-old-cemeteries-ar-1193641/

The marker is the 35th in the African-American Heritage Trail of Mobile. The trail was established in 2007 by the Mobile Historic Preservation Society and is directed by Dora Finley.

In late 2009 and early 2010, a project conducted by Neil Norman of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., used ground-penetrating radar supplied by Daphne Utilities to locate unmarked graves throughout the site along Bay Bridge Cutoff Road on Mobile’s north side.

At the marker unveiling, University of South Alabama professor Kern Jackson and AfricaTown descendant Philip Tyus performed a rite in which water from the Mobile River was poured into the ground while the names of some of those buried at the site were recited.

About 3,000 people are buried at the cemetery, which was established in 1876.

The ceremony also honored Emperor Green (1836-1909). Green was a Buffalo Soldier, one of many black American soldiers recruited as cavalrymen after the Civil War. Most, like Green, fought in the Indian wars of the western frontier.

Three members of the Alabama Chapter 1 of the National Association of Buffalo Soldiers, Sgt. Gabe Peck, Joe Hollins and Bruce Mitchell, watched the dedication on horseback and planted an American flag at Green’s grave.

Mobile City Councilman Fred Richardson, who served as master of ceremonies for the indoor part of the program at Union Missionary Baptist Church nearby, told the audience to take note of a conch shell that marks a grave close to the marker site.

Slave ships often diverted to the Caribbean islands, Richardson said, to restore the health of the Africans aboard before they could be to sold in the U.S. Queen conch was a primary dietary staple of this process, Richadson said.

Today, conch shells are frequently found in the homes of black families, especially in rural areas of the South, he said. “It will probably be the only relic your African ancestors left behind,” Richardson said.

Finley said efforts are already under way to have all of AfricaTown — what is known as Plateau today — listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

Also, she said the first African-American Heritage Trail bus tour for elementary school students studying Alabama history will take place Feb. 16 for students at Council Traditional School. She said the historic society and heritage trail are underwriting the costs of the tours for participating school systems.

Teachers and school administrators who wish to book the tour can get information by logging on to www.maaht.org.

The Rev. Lamar D. Brady and the Rev. Christopher Williams, as well as Mobile City Councilman William Carroll, also addressed those in attendance.

But it was left to Lorna Woods, who grew up close to the 139-year-old church on Bay Bridge Road, to impart enthusiasm for the day’s event. “This is out Super Bowl,” Woods said. “We never thought we would be recognized.”

Annie Alloway, who died in January at the age of 76, wanted to be laid to rest with her mother and other members of her fami­ly.

When her family and friends huddled together at Lincoln Cemetery to pay their final re­spects to the woman who had en­tertained them so often with her jokes and stories, they saw tears, respect and love. They did not see the three large garbage bags of trash that Alloway’s nephew, Autry Bostick, spent hours picking up before her service.

“I didn’t want them to see trash all around like that,” said Bostick, a 57-year-old who once lived in Montgomery but now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Most say conditions at Lin­coln Cemetery are actually bet­ter today than in past years, but that isn’t saying much. There are worse troubles than litter plaguing Montgomery oldest commercial cemetery for Afri­can-Americans.

When human bones are visi­ble because of broken concrete slabs and there is no one track­ing who is buried there, litter becomes a minor issue.

Lincoln Cemetery has long been one of Montgomery’s most notorious mysteries. Although privately owned, for years no one has acknowledged owning the cemetery. If the city, family members and volunteer groups did not periodically maintain the property, no one would.

Yet the burials continue.

Read the rest of the story

Greetings All,

Regarding the removal of African American Cemetery in Sumter County Florida, we are in a home stretch for tomorrow night’s Sumter County Commission meeting. FOX13 Tampa aired a news story tonight about the cemetery, All the more reason to bombard the commission with emails. One Commissioner’s heart has definitely turned. We need the rest. FOX13 News story: http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?073+article+News+20091007104347073073003

Letters to the Editor: http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?073+article+Opinion+20091007103219073073004

Their email addresses are below. Many of you took action previously but we need to renew and intensify our efforts. I am also wondering if we don’t need a S.O. S. site for endandered historical African American sites. Is there one online? I became involved with an effort to prevent a highway going through the cemetery in Henderson, KY. The road expansion would have been over the burial sites of my maternal great-grandparents. We won that one – for now. And I am reminded of Milligen’s Bend, LA. where my great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. I’m told that there has been an historical marker but it was vandalized and not replaced. You can read the story of Milligen’s Bend Battle and the United States Colored Troop who fought there online. It’s a story worth reading and retelling. (I recommend looking for ancestors on the Civil War enlistment rolls. The pension files fron NARA are extremly informational). I feel that we have a responsibility to identify unrecognized places of African American historic signifigance and see that it’s recorded and/or preserved.and publicized. Many communities have oral tradition on events that happened and had a social or familial impact on the residents. The latest genealogy news on our First Lady, Michelle Obama, showed a perfect example of following the paper trail and putting life into those names and dates. It can start with a local place or event and the names of those who shared in an event. Food for thought. Don’t forget the Sumter County Cemetery. Spread the word and please send emails to the following addresses. Promote preservation!

Dick Hoffman: Dick.Hoffman@sumtercountyfl.gov

Doug Gilpin: Doug.Gilpin@sumtercountyfl.gov

Don Burgess: Don.Burgess@sumtercountyfl.gov

Garry Breeden: Garry.Breeden@sumtercountyfl.gov

Randy Mask: Randy.Mask@sumtercountyfl.gov

Thanks for your efforts and I hope to have some great news for you on this matter soon.

Peace & Love

Joyce Reese McCollum

“This unprecedented project has never been accomplished before, and we feel a strong urgency to record those that have gone before us to keep our history alive for our community,” Project Coordinator and Bradley Academy Board Member Florence Smith said.

Once completed, this project will be an important contribution to the recorded history of African Americans in Rutherford County, she said.

But record these cemeteries, volunteer help is needed to locate all the black cemeteries and burial locations, document inscriptions, and record oral histories and family stories regarding burials that may not have been marked or whose markers have not withstood the passing years.

In partnership with the Rutherford County Archives, the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU, and the Rutherford County Historical Society, Bradley hopes to complete the project by the end of 2010.

A similar project was conducted in the 1970s to record all of the mostly white cemeteries and burials in this county and resulted in the book, “Cemeteries and Graveyards of Rutherford County, Tennessee” by Susan Daniel and published by the Rutherford County Historical Society in 2005.

Source: The Murfreesboro Post

When the Summerlee Foundation acquired the 400 acres in 2007, the tract included Bull Hill Cemetery, an African-American cemetery dating back to the 1850s and once part of the extensive Churchill Jones plantation.

“It was such a powerful experience for me. I can’t even explain the feeling I had standing there,” she said. “I felt lifted, warmed, like I was walking on clouds filled with sunshine. I cried. It changed me. I felt committed to working on behalf of all those buried in Bull Hill. Not just my grandmothers, but everybody’s grandmothers and grandfathers. I just could not leave their names unspoken in the earth. They just have to be remembered.”

The land also includes the earlier sites of Sarahville de Viesca, 1834-36, and Fort Milam. Jones moved to Falls County in 1853 from Alabama with his family and slaves. Eventually he owned 50,000 acres of prime Central Texas farmland.

Gangly trees shroud the half-acre graveyard, and a thick layer of vines, bramble and dried leaves crunch as visitors walk through. The Summerlee Foundation has plans to clear brush, plant grass and flowers, and erect a sturdy fence, once the THC researchers have finished their work.

Summerlee acquired the land from a descendant of Churchill Jones, also named Churchill Jones, of Marlin. Styles and the current Jones have become friends through their shared stories. Styles is relieved that the cemetery will be studied, documented and preserved.

“I attend genealogy meetings with other African-Americans,” Styles said. “The one place that most hit a roadblock is when they try to talk or get information from the descendant of the slave owner. Normally, the slave owner descendants are fearful of how the information will be used and if a big ‘scandal’ may come of it.”

However, Jones was open and friendly, willingly providing family papers that helped her document her great-great-great-grandparents, she said.

Descendants of those buried there have had recent reunions, the last in July. For Styles, descended from Jones’ slaves, her visit is a homecoming across the centuries. Bull Hill was an active cemetery until 1961.

Styles has been working with other family members to document all of the burials – a difficult task because of sketchy records. She has a list of 81 persons known to have been buried there, and another list of 68 who may be interred there. Countless more names have been lost because of slavery, Jim Crow laws and segregation, Styles said.

Nedra Lee, working with a grant from the Summerfield G. Roberts Foundation of Dallas, has been documenting the stories of the families represented in the cemetery. She has interviewed descendants and attended family gatherings to locate more relatives. Meanwhile, after documenting, mapping and photographing each burial, archaeologists have removed most of the stones to a safe place to either be fixed or replaced. Most burials, however, are marked with simple rocks or wooden crosses.

Archaeologists and researchers from the Texas Historical Commission have researched and documented this historic slave cemetery, untouched by urban or agricultural encroachments. The site also reveals interesting clues to 19th century African-American culture and memorials.

For Styles, Bull Hill is affirmation of all the stories she heard as a child from her parents and grandparents.

“I was shaking when I realized my grandma was telling the truth. I was so overwhelmed,” she said. “When I saw Bull Hill, I looked out over that site. I felt the spirit of my ancestors, I felt like they said, ‘Thank God, you found us. We lived the best lives we could, and we tried to pass on the best part of us to other generations.’”

Larry Smith has been looking for his father’s grave for 40 years.

Smith knows that his father, Reginald William Smith, was buried in 1950 in Section C of the historic, 22.5-acre Woodlawn Cemetery, the final resting place of many prominent African American figures of the late 19th century and most of the 20th. But badly kept records and a lack of maintenance for many years after the cemetery was abandoned in the 1960s have prevented Smith and others from locating their loved ones.

Now, a volunteer association that has worked for decades to restore the cemetery hopes a system called ground penetrating radar, or GPR, will help Smith and other survivors.

“I hope to find my dad before they put me in the grave,” said Smith, 60, a past president of the Woodlawn Perpetual Care Association board, which has owned and operated the cemetery since 1972.

The GPR machine used at Woodlawn looks vaguely like a lawn mower and acts as a sort of navigation system, locating materials underground as an operator pushes it slowly across the grass. The machine sends radar waves underground and creates an image of what is below, and the image can be downloaded to a computer and analyzed.

The technology is most often used at construction sites to detect pipes, electric lines and other metals in the ground, said Matt Aston, president of Ground Penetrating Radar Systems, a company that operates the system. Depending on the type of machine, GPR can detect objects as far down as 40 feet, Aston said.

Companies have been using GPR since the early 1950s, but the technology has advanced, and a number of cemeteries in recent years have begun to see it as a means of conducting an inventory. The system’s ability to search cemetery grounds without disturbing them helps avoid past practices of digging up graves or sticking large metal rods in the ground to search for caskets, Aston said.

Tyrone F. General, president of the Woodlawn board, has completed more than two years of training on the GPR system. He said it will take him at least three years to comb through the cemetery grounds.

GPR was not being used in cemetery searches when Smith began looking for his father in 1970. Smith was a student at Federal City College, now part of the University of the District Columbia, and longed to visit his father’s grave.

“I couldn’t get in because the gate was locked and it was full of trash and debris,” he said.

Two decades later, Smith answered a newspaper ad calling for volunteers to help clean up the cemetery and began volunteering on Saturdays. After a month, he was elected president of the association’s board, serving until 2000.

It took the board two decades to get the cemetery in decent shape, said General, the current board president. The cemetery still needs funding, repair and daily maintenance, he said, and General said the association hopes to make money through the sale of burial plots.

General, a retired Vietnam War veteran and D.C. police officer whose grandmother is buried in Woodlawn, said he hopes the $30,000 GPR system will help pinpoint caskets and unravel some of the mystery about how many people are buried there and who they are.

“I can scan the ground and tell you whether there’s something there. That’s a major step,” he said. “With the GPR system, we can accurately determine what sites are available.”

General said he hopes the GPR system will help restore Woodlawn, whose history is steeped in struggle. Started in 1895 in what was a rural part of the District off Benning Road SE, Woodlawn was one of the few places that accepted the remains of black residents. Before, black District residents had to bury their loved ones in churchyards or Maryland cemeteries, General said.

Several of the District’s most prominent African Americans, including the nation’s second African American U.S. senator, Blanche K. Bruce (R-Miss.), chose to be buried at Woodlawn. As the city made room for Metro stations and other buildings during the 20th century, bodies from other cemeteries were moved there. It is home to more than a dozen mass graves, General said. Its last burial was 30 years ago.

Records indicate that 35,000 people are buried there, but General said he thinks the number is much higher. “There has never been any verification of that number. It’s purely speculation,” he said. “I have several thousand records that indicate that there are more burials.”

As the cemetery changed hands over the past century, those selling the land did not keep an accurate count of the cemetery’s available plots, General said.

In the 1960s, Louis P. Bell and his son, Richard, who owned Woodlawn at the time, discovered bodies in sections that were supposed to be unused and abandoned their restoration efforts. The cemetery’s rolling hills quickly became overgrown with weeds and a dumping place for all kinds of debris.

Locals formed the Woodlawn Perpetual Care Association with nine volunteer board members to help save the cemetery. In 2000, the group received a $300,000 grant from Congress to clean up the site, General said.

An annual grant from National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover and private donations provide for its maintenance. But General said he hopes the cemetery might one day receive a steady source of income to help the association preserve and maintain it.

“We can’t afford to let Woodlawn be forgotten,” he said.

That is especially important for people such as Smith, who hold onto hope that the GPR system will guide them to their loved ones.

“I just want to find my daddy’s grave,” he said.

Source: Washington Post