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Sometimes the presence of an African American cemetery is obvious—when an area is enclosed with barbed wire or contains visible markers or is adjacent to a church, for example. But often, what remains is so subtle that it is likely to be missed by the casual observer. Left unmarked, these cemeteries are more often subject to inadvertent or intentional destruction. There is no single correct way to commemorate a cemetery, but any efforts to do so should focus on respecting the individuals buried at the site. Solomon Family Cemetery Sometimes even narrowing down the possible location of a cemetery is not enough to help locate it. For many years I dropped in on the local African American genealogy group meetings to report on new findings and ask if anyone had additional leads, but eventually I stopped making those announcements because they made me feel like the angel of death, focusing on the dead and buried. But one of the leads that arose during a meeting seemed relatively easy to pursue. A member of the group was searching for a family cemetery within the city limits of Charlottesville. Her family name was Solomon. Unfortunately, the cemetery had been disturbed during the construction of a new apartment complex. And yet the developer was using the family name, calling the complex “Solomon Court Apartments.” An advertisement beckoned, “Enjoy the serenity and quiet of country-like living in beautiful Charlottesville—without sacrificing the easy access to shopping, business, and entertainment offered at Solomon Court.”1 Decades earlier this site had been situated in the country, whereas today it lies along a very busy thoroughfare squarely within the city of Charlottesville. The only remaining evidence of the “country” is a rustic-looking wooden fence and some landscaped flowers. Otherwise there is very little unpaved surface area. 9 COMMEMORATING AND PRESERVING HISTORIC BLACK CEMETERIES 133 Commemorating and Preserving Historic Black Cemeteries I visited the complex hoping to locate the cemetery, bringing my dog as a cover for my explorations. It was possible that the cemetery lay in an undeveloped area of the site, perhaps adjacent to the trash compactor that sat in a lightly wooded area or in one of the small patches of grass left for resident canines. The welcoming sign for Solomon Court included a warning against soliciting or trespassing, making it difficult to conduct an extensive search (such as probing the ground for buried markers), and eventually I gave up. Now, years later, I drive by the site once a week en route to deliver lunches for Meals on Wheels. With each pass I scan the perimeter of the property, hoping to notice a misplaced tree or rock that might suggest a place of burial, but without success so far. Even though my colleague had shared hermemoriesof atwentieth-centuryfamilycemeteryanditsapproximatelocation, I was unable to find it. This story highlights the need to locate and map these sites before they are covered over or destroyed. Commemorating African American Graveyards Insomecases,descendantcommunitiesmayprefertheanonymityof anunmarked burial ground, which decreases visits from nonrelatives. But there are also many examples nationwide of memorials designed by descendants2 and of successful, culturally sensitive memorials for African American burial grounds that attempt to incorporateAfricanandChristianbelief systems.Thereisno“right”waytomemorialize a cemetery, but it is possible to suggest what should be avoided. For instance, it would not be appropriate to enclose an antebellum slave cemetery with a wrought-iron late-Victorian-style gate. Not only are the material and style anachronistic, but the late nineteenth-century emphases on enclosure and on demarcating the division between “sacred” and “secular” space was less relevant to enslaved communities. By necessity, many slave cemeteries took advantage of opportune locations along fence lines, in rocky, inarable soil, or in wooded areas. Most of the slave cemeteries in my study appeared to grow randomly, extending beyondtheoriginalclustersof gravesandoftenpastoriginalfencelines.If ahistoric slave cemetery must be enclosed, either to protect it or to identify its location, I recommend building a low stone wall or selecting symbolically appropriate perimeter markers, which might include hedges, yucca plants, fieldstones, or artwork. The goal is to create a symbolic barrier between sacred and profane ground, while avoiding anachronistic enclosures such as a twentieth-century chain-link fence. A relatively impermeable boundary, such as a high stone wall, may not be appropriate given the original open nature of most black cemeteries. The inclination to enclose property is more often seen in public cemeteries and some white churchyards. A more important step in memorializing a site is to erect...

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