The City Council and members of the city’s Clinton Cemetery Advisory Board will have done a great day’s work when they erect a monument designating the gravesite of 50 or more African-American slaves buried within the Springvale section.
It is an action that is worth doing, no matter the cost.
Those graves, once part of the old Clinton Cemetery on Sampson Street, were moved in the mid-1800s to the Springvale section but never had any kind of permanent identification attached to them. The burial plots, numbering at least 50, have been situated under the shade of some large trees in the old portion of the cemetery since that time, undesignated and, for the most part, unknown.
Thanks to the advisory committee, made up of members Tim Butler, Anthony Worley, Whit Tart and Jeremy Edgerton, that is about to change.
Members met with City Council a month or so back, detailing the history of the graves, showing maps of the location and urging leaders to give permission — and the necessary resources — for the construction and installation of a monument.
Council quickly, and unanimously, backed the committee’s recognition to erect the monument. They did so understanding, as we do, that something needed to be done to ensure that those individuals and their final resting place would be acknowledged.
We applaud all those who have had a hand in ensuring such a marker is erected. No one should be buried without some type of designation being made, a lasting testament to lives that are important to us as a community and, in most cases, to us personally.
Those 50 or more slaves laid to rest in Springvale are a part of our heritage and our history, and a marker erected at the site of their burial ground would show them the respect they wholeheartedly deserve. It will also, as Butler told Council members, identify the burial ground as being the final resting place for African-American slaves, ensuring the area won’t be disturbed again. And, just as importantly it will give those who visit the cemetery a point of recognition that has not been there before.
With bids already on the table for construction of a marker and installation thereafter, we would hope final decisions could be made soon so that a designation would be forthcoming.
As Mayor Lew Starling so aptly put it when the designation proposal was presented, this is a wonderful cause and one we, like Council, wholeheartedly support.