Your Help Still Needed to Protect Richmond's Historic Black Cemeteries

Four months have passed since 40 descendants and other Black Virginians wrote to Governor Northam requesting his intervention at East End and Evergreen Cemeteries. But he and other government officials remain silent, even as overgrowth engulfs the cemeteries yet again. 

Instead of providing consistent care for the two historic African American burial grounds, the Enrichmond Foundation/Parity LLC is “rebranding” them as “The Cemeteries at Evergreen,” as if they were a suburban subdivision. 

On top of this, Enrichmond is trying to drum up support for its recently released “preservation plans”—which are not, in fact, preservation plans at all. (For more information, please read this.)

A group of cemetery defenders—people with family buried at East End and Evergreen, members of Richmond’s Descendants Council, historic preservation experts, historians, other academics, and longtime cemetery volunteers—wrote an open letter in response to the plans. 

We ask that you read it, and then we ask you to contact these public officials (click the link and scroll down for contact info) to reiterate the demands made in the March 10 letter to the governor and in the petition launched a few days later:  

• Halt any further transfer of public funds or historic African American burial grounds to Enrichmond/Parity LLC. 

• Ensure that a proper cultural landscape report is produced for East End and Evergreen and reviewed by the relevant authorities.

• Convene public meetings about the future of greater Richmond’s historic Black cemeteries.

• Commit to using the nationally recognized rubric of best practices, “Engaging Descendant Communities in the Interpretation of Slavery at Museums and Historic Sites.”

In response to these demands, Enrichmond keeps churning out PR, announcing recently that it is creating a “Family Council” for the cemeteries—another advisory group that it would control. This is not what the community asked for. 

We call on our representatives to guarantee that independent descendants and other committed citizens have not just a voice but a vote when it comes to our historic cemeteries.