Bee Stings and Board Members

Nothing sets a fire under your ass to get something done than a literal burning behind haha.... 

yesterday I received a detailed response from Melissa in Archaeology regarding the contents of the surveys conducted on the site. She couldnt show me the actual surveys but she did kindly type out all of their contents that she could share. I asked her if the surveys may have lent any information for dimensions or size but she said they did not. here is the email: 

The rest of the graves may still be there, just without any surface evidence. From what little they wrote, I take it that even 20 years ago they were mostly only identified as grave depressions. It's very easy for unmarked (or no longer marked) graves to become lost in the leaflitter or depressions erased by erosion.

I would check to see when that fence went in. If was close to the 2000 survey, then it probably was laid out when the pin flags were in place, meaning everyone was caught within the perimeter. If it was much later or after the flags were removed, then there may be folks north and south of the central part of the cemetery. The way it's written on the 2000 form, I would say that the cemetery is oblong or rectangular, so I would expect any missing folks to be found north (heading towards the pool) or south (within the confines of that treed area).

If you look at the tax parcel maps (

https://maps.raleighnc.gov/iMAPS/

), "WIDEWATERS VILLAGE COMMUNITY ASSN INC" is listed as owning that huge parcel (PIN 1744638638). There's no reason why they didn't sell the rest of the plots except to avoid the cemetery. I think that's why they had that contract archaeology group come in.

If they had moved the graves, there are NC General Statutes that cover the process (

NC GS 65-106

). If you want to double check the law states that you have to file a cemetery move with the county board of commissioners. But again, the plan listed on the 2000 form was "avoidance," so I bet they're all still there. They may be less visible on the surface but are still resting in place.

Melissa A. Timo, M.A., R.P.A.

Office of State Archaeology

Historic Cemetery Specialist

This did not tell me the exact size of the area, which according to the article by Schulz was greatly reduced from 130 plots to about 50. It did however tell me that there were 30 rows of graves, so that would be about 5 or 6 per row. roughly. Keith offered to meet me there and see if we could identify the rows and work out how many there are and if its all contained in that fenced area as Melissa thought they should be. 

I met him there at 7:30 and we walked the site. he showed me the remnants of some of the flags him and his party had placed years before at graves they could identify by sight (depressions in the ground with a head stone and foot stone). when we counted across it did appear that there may be enough area there that they are all safely contained and not built over as previously devised by Schulz. Sadly, he is no longer with us so we cannot ask him what the area looked like before construction. 

So, although that means there is less scandal to uncover here, it is reassuring that they did not build on top of any graves. they all appear to be able to fit in the fenced area on the top of the hill. we can only confirm for sure the number there once we get approval to have the ground penetrating radar examination conducted on the site. Unfortunately, I walked over and stuck my foot into a large ground bee nest - which caused an angry swarm of bees to attack me all the way out of the woods and down the sidewalk .I received at least 10 good stings on my bottom and arms, back and leg. the bees were still attacking my ankles so I took my sneakers off and after making sure none were in there walked back to the cars parked in the swimming pool parking lot in my blue socks. I havent been stung by a bee since i was a little girl. i forgot how much it burns. My back and rear were instantly on fire. If i had been alone or with someone who wasnt a stranger i would have surely put up a lot more of a fuss, but i was mostly embarressed. So i put on a brave face, winced thru the pain and swelling and when he suggested we go to look at Clay Hill cemetery area, i said “sure!”

We road out to Clayhill and tried to identify the cemetery grounds there, but there was a driving range put in that has since been closed down and grown over in that area so the ground has been much disturbed.  I thought he had eyes on the cemetery before and knew where it was, but when we got there we walked largely the same areas I had trapsed blindy with my mother and there were no identifiable depressions or stones there that I could see. We hope to add a marker for that cemetery too and maybe have the radar guys come out and do their thing, but its hard when we are not sure exactly where it is. Schulz said at one time it had a stone wall around at least part of it. There was some cement chunks under a tree discarded, not sure if that was part of that wall, but could be from the putt putt so hard to say. I want to go back and look around another day to try to find something. There is also supposed to be evidence of indian burial mounds around that area since Tuscarora lived by the Neuse River there as well. 

after that, he rode me around to look at the neuse recreation area on Old Milburnie I hadnt known existed and showed me the damn there and we looked at the plaque installed by the daughters of the Revolution marking the site of Clay Hill Plantation and he took me over to an old abandoned clubhouse lodge deep in the woods behind a trailer park by the river where the KKK meetings allegedly took place presumedly after the clay Hill house, the original clan meeting site, burned down in 1923. THe lodge sits in sad disrepair, a place that could be fixed up and put to good use by the trailer park residents, but it seems now to just be a place to store old junk. A neat building of wooden beams and round stones. 

Correspondence:

Yesterday I also reached out to someone affiliated with Wake County Historic Preservation who i saw on an article regarding the proprosed move of the Hinton family cemetery plot and they wre trying to deny the Hinton descendants request to have it moved stating that they wanted to let the majora nd his family rest in peace - arguing that their graves should be “incorporated” into any construction. i thought maybe they had a hand in the incorporationg of the slave cemetery in my neighborhiood’s constructio then. So i sent an email to the contact there, Terry Nolan, to see if he had any information about it he could share. 

His response:

Dear Ms. Chiari,

Thank you for your email. I consulted with our staff member who processes grave removals and he did a little research on this particular site.  He believes that the subject cemetery is intended to be permanently preserved within the open space/recreation area for this subdivision (which was platted in 2003).  The cemetery (and the subdivision) is located within the town limits so anything related to the subdivision or the cemetery must be processed through the town. Town staff may know more about any private efforts to restore and recognize the value of the site. I encourage you to contact Jason Brown with Knightdale. [email protected]

The Historic Preservation Commission has a small budget of a few thousand dollars that is used for small studies as well as plaques for landmark properties. They are meeting today and I will bring this up with them and get back to you.

Regarding the Hinton family cemetery’s relocation—the county did not make any financial contribution to the moving of that cemetery, the reconstruction of the stone wall at the reinterment site, or the rededication ceremony at Oakwood Cemetery.  The county involvement was limited to the formal review and processing of the grave removal petition made Board of Commissioners via a public hearing.  If you are interested in learning more about that process please feel free to contact Keith Lankford at (919 612-6744) in our office.

Sincerely,

Terry Nolan

Hi Summer,

The members of the Historic Preservation Commission offered up some ideas. Not exactly sure what you need but if you are looking for assistance with research and documentation Sarah Koonts with the state archives can help. Also, Wake County’s Olivia Raney Library has historical documents. The state has grants for research and interpretive signage. There is no public funding for restoration that our board members know of, however, they mentioned Cary Christian Church privately raised funds for a project and may be good to talk to.

Best wishes,

Terry

Okay, so that provided an idea about some potential funding and he gave me a contact for the town. I emailed that person and have yet to receive a response. I also havent received a response from Widewaters yet. 

After I returned home and licked my wounds, it was clear that do anything further on this project, we need to open a dialogue with WideWaters that owns the land there. Keith suggested i try the NextDoor app to see if any members on it would know who to talk to about it. I grabbed the 5 member association member list from the association side and went to work. 3 of the 5 were on the app and I sent them all the same message letting them know what I wanted to do and asking who to talk to. 

Benjamin was the first to response, but he wasnt very helpful. He said to try to contact the town, but i let him know i did that already and since widewaters owns that land anyway, we probably need their approval to do anything. He said he’d talk to the board and get back to me within the week on who to speak with about it. 

One other of the 3 responded and basically said the same. 

so now we wait. Who do i talk to next. Whose door do i beat down next? I already have a Plan B and C if they tell me no. If they tell me no, then we go to the media. if they tell me no, then we go to the BLM advocates and the papers and local community and the churches until we get some pitchforks and torches and make something happen. 

i’m really hoping it wont come to any of that. I’d like to quietly get the approval, assemble the interested parties who want to help and clean it up, clear it out, get the ground penetrating radar guy in there to do what he does and mark the graves and get the funding for the plaque marker and have that placed identifying the cemetery and work out who will maintain it and the funding for where that would come from. 

I just need the GREENLIGHT. I am really grateful for all of the help from those i’ve reached out to thus far. I hope that this can be started sincerely in the very near future. 

Today i drove around Knightdale with my mother to look at the Oaks and Beaver Dam plantation homes that are still around. We went on to Farm Well Road and saw the bronze plaque where Clay Hill on the Neuse plantation house once stood. We drove over to Car Cosmetology and walked in the woods behind there to try to find the slave cemetery that is supposed to be behind there but only found the remnant of the old putt putt course that was back there.

I finally met with Keith Gibbs this evening to learn more about the history and the road blocks he encountered when he tried to get the site in my neighborhood recognized. He thinks i have a better chance of having it recognized since i am a Widewaters resident and Widewaters HOA owns the piece of property that it is on. I emailed the HOA last week and received no response as of yet regarding who to talk to about it.

Keith was really nice and knowledgeable about the area and wants to help me get this done and not just have a marker installed but also c lean it up and have it be like a park that is maintained and i think that would be really good, but might be pushing it. I thought at least have a marker installed anyway especially if Mingo is buried there. It’s only right since they named a neighborhood after this enslaved person and then don’t even honor his grave site. We need to do better.

I”m not sure what the next steps are exactly. Keith wants to host a community gate together to watch Moving Midway at his home - raising awareness is a big first step. I’d like to pass out flyers in Widewaters informing all of the residents about the cemetery here.

Next we may get the media involved with covering a story about it.

I’m working on locating the survey reports that the Archaeology lady told me she found. Keith didn’t know about the stone that said L.I. Hinton on it in that cemetery. So i found out something that even he didnt know surprisingly. He said he’d take me to the clay hill cemetery and maybe one day walk the Widewaters midway cemetery too. I was thinking we may be able to do the ground penetrating radar in the clay hill cemetery sooner than the midway one since its kind of off in the woods desolate. Maybe we could do it without special permissions but not sure lol.

This is really interesting and exciting but I’m not sure how to get it done. What the right moves are. Since I found this out and have walked the cemetery i have felt a strange presence pushing me forward. Animals have been crossing my path. After i had read that one Hinton slaves narrative about a rooster that was blind being taken to be sold and that they didnt think it would be, but someone asked if it could crow and the rooster crowed and the man said that shows he is lively and he would buy the rooster from him, there was a rooster in my path. A random wayward rooster there that I had to go and help. Rabbits cross my path and stop and stare at me. I got home a few minutes ago and a frog was sitting there right in front of my car staring at me. Didnt even move. I had to walk over him. I take these things as signs. They want me to push ahead. They want to be remembered. They want me to keep my whispered promise to them.

“The only way that we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.”

Today I heard back from the administrator from the Historic Marker office. She sent me the following information regarding the cemetery that the archaeologists sent to her:

Lindsay discovered that our GIS was mislabeled and we do have a site file number for that cemetery (31WA1213). It is located about .34 mi directly from the old front drive of the plantation house. It's located in the wooded area immediately behind 1032 Delta River Way (near the community pool).

It looks like there were two surveys done (1995 and 2000), but there are no site plan maps, inventories, detailed photographs etc. They list about 30 rows of east-west oriented graves (~131 in total), most marked with fieldstones. There was also one broken inscribed marker of L. I. Hinton, who died August 31, 1825 at 46 years.

The national register coordinator for NC got back to me and said that the national register listing is just for the home and outbuildings, so the cemetery is not contributing.

Did I send you information on local markers yesterday? The archaeology program is nowhere near up and running, so that’s probably the only option right now.

Ansley Herring Wegner

Administrator, North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program

She had already provided me the information regarding local markers. I found it strange that no maps or photos were included with the surveys so I responded to her email asking if that was normal with surveys. She wasn’t sure so she included the archaeologists on the email so she could answer my question. Here is that message:

Most cemetery surveys, especially ones that predate 2010, don't have a site plan. We're often only given grid coordinates and photos (the latter of which were not included for this cemetery). For many cemeteries, like this one, it's impossible to concretely map its extents without GPR or excavations. This is because of the possibilities of unmarked or now-unmarked burials, or the area is heavily covered in brush. Other times, as was the case for these two surveys it seems, it is a much quicker visit than you may think- a couple of hours to confirm that it is a cemetery, before moving on to the next site on the list of a very big project.

Melissa A. Timo, M.A., R.P.A.

Office of State Archaeology

Historic Cemetery Specialist

So with that, my hopes for having a comprehensive map of the original cemetery were dashed. I did get a drop box folder from Keith Gibbs that included the first 15 minutes of the Moving Midway documentary about the plantation house move and a map of Widewaters subdivision with the cemetery clearly marked. That helps me some in that it at least it confirms its existence. Keith is going to try to upload the rest of the film or maybe just give it to me when we meet. That meeting will. Likely take place tomorrow so he can fill me in on all the details of what he knows in his and his groups attempts to have the cemetery marked. One of his cohorts responded on my facebook post wondering if we knew it was them that placed the markers on the graves. He said well they do now. We were very shneaky about it. I don’t know why anyone should have to be sneaky. It’s not like there’s a sign that says no trespassers allowed. It’s just there to be explored. I’m still itching my legs from the mosquitos that attacked me yesterday when I walked through it. The itching serves as a reminder that I need to keep scratching at this.

I was reading more of that article that I attached a link to yesterday, the one that helped me learn of the graveyard here and it said that there is another one near the Clay Hill plantation nearby and that there was evidence of Indian burial mounds near that one too. Try as I might I couldn’t locate it on google maps satellite view or find any information on how to get to it so I posted a question on Knightdale community’s page asking if anyone know how to find it. I’m assuming that site probably doesn’t have a marker either, but I’m not sure. Interestingly, near the Clay Hill Plantation, the original house burned down in 1923 and a good thing too since the KKK were holding clan meetings there, was a cemetery for some of the HInton family members. When they were getting ready to sell the land the family paid to have the remains moved from that cemetery to the Oakwood Cemetery. It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth that their graves got to be respectably moved to another location while the slaves graves just got built on top of. Many of those slaves probably still have descendants in the area as well, but they didn’t get thee same opportunity to know if their family were buried there because they just got thrown in the ground with a blank field stone marking the place where their bodies lay.

Some people say that history is called history for a reason and that people being angry now about things that happened in the past is unwarranted. Yeah sure, no one living has any slaves today, but that doesn’t erase the wrong doings of the past or the fact that black people are still feeling the affects of slavery to this day due to systemic racism that has kept them from thriving the way they should. Something that is fundamental to most people is knowing who their families are, knowing where they came from and about their descendants. Black people do not have that same luxury in this country. Many don’t know what part of Africa their descendants were taken from, they don’t know much about their relatives who were slaves and they probably don’t know where they were buried or, like in this instance, their descendants may have a swimming pool and houses built on top of their graves. But who can know for sure .the survey of the area couldn’t even determine exactly how many were buried here and there is hardly any way at all of knowing who they were because the records, if any were kept, are likely lost. Knowing our past and our history is a large part of knowing who we are. These people were robbed of their history. Some of the surnames they carry were the last names of their descendants masters and some were self proclaimed when they were freed, Washington was a popular surname that freed men chose because he was the first president of the country that they were forced to call their own and it was a way for them to maybe feel like they finally belonged here, freely. A way to take back ownership of their lives. There are black descendants of the Hinton family in the area still. They still carry the name of their ancestor’s long dead master/and or blood relative in some cases as it is known that the Hinton’s had children with their slaves.

I tried to find any information on who the HInton grave marker was for in the cemetery mentioned in the survey, but couldn’t find anything. The fact that they were the only one with a grave marker bearing a name, the Hinton name, made me believe this was a descendent of the Hinton family and since it was here in the slave cemetery, this person was likely a black descendent of the Hinton’s. They were kind enough to have a marker with their name on it, but they still were buried with the other slaves, descendent by blood or not. They were still just a slave in their eyes.

I read that the HIntons were described as kindly masters and even had a school for the slaves on the grounds near their home. Slaves were usually not allowed to receive an education so I felt that was odd, but then I thought about it a little more. Since the Hinton men had children with their slaves and treated them somewhat kindly from reports, the Hintons probably had relationships with their slave offspring and since those kids could not be sent to white schools obviously, they probably still felt as their kin that they should receive an education. I think that’s why the school was built, so the Hintons’ black sons and daughters could be educated, not just out of the goodness of their heart towards their slaves’ children. I could be wrong in my assumption, but it just feels right. I would need to do more research on that but who knows if any record of their motives was ever recorded.

I can’t explain how strange it is knowing that your living in the middle of something that always felt elsewhere. Slavery happened down there in Georgia, South Carolina, part os North Carolina in the country but not here where I’m at. Well, having to face that it happened right here where I’m sitting is a bit unnerving to say the least. The dark institution that was so ingratiated in this “civil” society seems unbelievable to have every happened, but it did. I read today about the treatment of slaves, which I’ve learned a lot about over the years anyway, but sometimes its nice to research more and hear first hand accounts of things. Everything I read attested to the fact that female slaves had it far worse than the men. They were expected to be sex slaves in addition to their forced labor duties and some of the wives of the masters were the most cruel to these girls. I read a Hinton slave’s account who was from the area and he spoke of one girl that was so badly treated and tortured by her mistress that she ran away and was never heard from again. She was burning her with hot iron. I learned that if a slave ran away that it was LAW that the master’s had to punish the runaway slave upon his return or they would be FINED. Such a brutal, barbaric system I can’t even understand. It makes me think how people in the past always demonized other races and called them uncivilized and animalistic. Funny how they never were able to look in the mirror at themselves. Nothing they did to the Africans or the Native Americans was civil.

Over the past few weeks, Catholic Churches in Canada have been burnt down because the graves of the children sent to the Catholic Institutions for Native American integration were discovered numbering in the hundreds and a few such schools. There are people now searching the grounds of these places to find all the hidden cemeteries. I’m sure there are many of these institutions that were in America that have the same situation. Carlisle, I’m looking at you! This is important. Remembering these people and respecting their burial sites is important.

I sent an email to the HOA assistant director and asked who I should contact regarding having a marker placed at the neglected slave cemetery behind the community pool. I’m eager to hear their response, haha. I wonder if they even know about it. I just want to know what I’m dealing with here.

We shall see.

Today I learned a haunting truth about a secret hidden right in my very neighborhood. An ugly truth that has been hidden, covered up and mostly forgotten, until now.

In Knightdale, North Carolina the prominent plantation owner, Charles Lewis Hinton, purchased and built a plantation home for his son David Hinton and his new wife Mary Boddie Carr as a wedding present on a stretch of land that would come to be known as the Midway Plantation because it was halfway between two other Hinton family properties. The beautiful, two-story Greek Revival plantation home was built in 1848 as a forced-labor farm. A slave plantation.

I’m not certain how many people were enslaved there over the years, but I do know that at least 130 of those slaves were buried on a site that would later be knowingly built on top of to create Widewaters subdivision. MY neighborhood.

Right behind the community pool and club house there is a strange white gravel path that leads up a slight hill to a black wrought iron fence gate that is always latched. There is a rickety wooden fencing surrounding a wooded area on a hill. This is in the middle of the neighborhood. There was never any explanation for it - for why, in a development, this overgrown patch of trees is fenced in and gated off, untouched, where normally there would be another few houses perhaps. I pass this area almost daily in my car or on leisurely walks. I had noticed the fence but thought maybe it was part of someone’s property. I didn’t think too much of it.

But that changed today. Today I was bored and looking up about local plantation owners in the area because history has always interested me. I learned a little about the Shoppes of Midway being built where the plantation house once stood and that the original house and its outbuildings were moved 2 miles up the road so a Target could be built and the ever expanding road wouldn’t keep encroaching on their lawn. This made way for growth in Knightdale. And grow it has. What was once a small town on the outskirts of Raleigh has become busier and more built up as available housing in the city has decreased and people leave it in search of quieter suburbs to live and raise their families. So as I was researching for no reason in particular other than personal interest, I stumbled upon an article about Midway Plantation and it stated that there was a slave cemetery that was surveyed and a neighborhood was built on top of it. It said it was across the street to the east from where the Midway Plantation house originally stood and that all that was left of the cemetery was maybe 50 graves on a hill in some trees surrounded by a black wrought iron fence. The article states that after the building of the subdivision was started, it was clear that houses were more important than the graves of the many slaves that worked the plantations. And yes, the builders did know about the cemetery. It was surveyed and it was signed off on to be built over. I think this is when the downplaying, lying and covering up started. A letter was reportedly written according to the below article when the preparations for the subdivision were being made that said that such a large slave cemetery couldn’t have existed in this area based on the shaky reference that the present owners didn’t have enough slaves to have this type of burial ground and no church could be identified on the grounds (cause cemeteries only are constructed on church grounds?) this mysterious letter writer conveniently failed to recognize that the land was originally Hinton land and they had slaves numbering in the hundreds here and could most certainly have amassed a deceased slave population of that size over the years it was in operation.

There is a saying about guilt : “A given excuse that was not asked for implies guilt.” If this letter writer submitted this without prompting from any public outcry than he was already defending a guilty mind. He was trying to persuade people away from the truth and to avoid any public outrage over the very wrong they knew they were committing by building here.

That article link is here: http://www.knightdalehistoric.com/pdf/plantations3.pdf

This was the only article or snippet of information I could find about this cemetery that very clearly under my neighborhood and whose remaining grave sites lie just mere feet away from our community swimming pool. This disturbed me greatly because to date, this site is unmarked and unrecognized. So i first decided to submit a request for a historical marker to be made for the site. I was met with an emailed response by a very helpful administrator for the NC Marker Historical Society who said that they no longer do markers for cemeteries but she would contact the National Register for Historic Places and see if the cemetery could be added to the Midway plantation that is already registered as a historical place. She has been talking with archaeologists who are working on this and she’ll be in touch. I also emailed someone in archives to see how I could find the site survey that was done but haven’t received a response yet.

Next I decided to post this information on Facebook to the local community groups and see how they felt about it, and to inform them as well as pose that a marker be made and that I would try to get that facilitated. An outpouring of support and offerings to donate to help fund its creation were given. I knew I was onto something that was important not just to me as a person living in a neighborhood with a secret of this magnitude, but to a community of people who would also want this recognized.

Now, I myself am not African American. I am pretty much as white as they come, I have the genealogy report to prove it. I struggled with the idea that I would be lambasted as trying to be some sort of “white savior” or something by trying to make this happen. I felt guilty that I was the one that found this information and had to be the one to put it out there. I felt like this belongs to the descendants of slaves. this is something that would affect their community,feelings and hearts maybe more than the white community’s in its ramifications and would of course be more important to them on a more personal level. Who am I to come in and make a big stink about something that isn’t even my history someone might say,but it is America’s history. It is the history of the land I now inhabit. And it is an issue that I hold dear to my heart because these men and women and children that lived, worked and died here were not just property or possessions, they were people and their graves should be respected just like anyone else’s. More so I think. Their graves can serve as a reminder of the great bloody sins that occurred in the building of this country. In the building of the south. The only monuments I’d like to see in the south would be to commemorate the slaves, not the enslavers and the people that tried to tear the country apart. The hero slaves that helped build this nation against their will and with great laboring and suffering due to an abhorrent institution that stains our history. They are the ones that should be remembered. Their stories told.

I have always been a sympathizing person. My first hero in elementary school was Martin Luther King, Jr. I gave an oral report on him and did papers later in junior high. I have always been the type of person that hates seeing injustice done to people and the hatred that divides communities and people over nothing more than color or ignorant biases. It never made sense to me and I never understood why people can’t be kind to one another and celebrate differences rather than fear them.

Some people made the point that many cemeteries have been likely built on over the years including white cemeteries, which I also think is awful, but in this situation PART OF THIS CEMETERY IS STILL HERE! Part of our history, this city’s history is still here in OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. We pass it every day! It is here with us and it should be recognized. It should be visited and reflected on. It should be acknowledged.

I visited the cemetery site today and saw the indentations in the ground and the old stone markers left on some of the sites where the slaves were buried. I couldn’t believe that this was just here, between houses and a pool, not in a historical site that you had to pay to see. No fanfare or brochure handouts. Just dusty old bones in the ground marked by grey stones in a patch of trees in the middle of a subdivision, silently waiting to be seen. I whispered to them before I left that I would do all I could to make sure they were not forgotten. That a marker in their honor would be made so they could be remembered. I sincerely hope I can make that happen.

Thru my posts on Facebook, I met a man named Keith Gibbs who has apparently already done a lot of work to try to have this cemetery recognized with a small group of others but they hit many roadblocks. He told me that there are cover ups and corruption surrounding the area from higher ups and people that don’t want this information out there. He was unsuccessful in his journey to get the site recognized, but he has agreed to hand over his research and findings to me in hopes I will be the one to get something done. ME, a curious girl with no real clout, lol. Yeah, ME, I’m the one. I’m the one that will make this happen where others failed. RIGHT?? Right.

Now, it should be said that I have never really been the figure head for anything in my life. I have never been the spokesperson, the leader the public person, the socialite. I am a shy person that works best from the shadows, behind the scenes. The one that does the work but doesn’t get the credit. And I have largely been okay with that role. It’s less stressful. But now people are looking to me to lead them on this issue. To call the shots and take the donations and create the marker. And that was all fine and dandy…. until CBS 17 messaged me asking if I’d like to do a story for them to help get attention and funding for the marker. I got excited and also nervous. I let her know that would likely be a good Avenue to take to get it done but I am still in the information gathering stage. I let her know of my meeting with Keith and told her I’d get back with her when I knew more. She was okay with that.

Honestly, I was relieved I had a reason to stall. I’ve never been on TV before! Cameras DO NOT love me unless its a selfie photo with a Snapchat filter that i’m taking of myself lol. I’m no public speaker. And also I still feel like it shouldn’t be me. I mean, it should since I discovered it and put it out there for the masses, but how can I be the face of this? Me, a white girl from small town Pennsylvania, be the face of a covered up slave cemetery? I feel guilty but also I do feel like there is something to white privilege and power and I hope to only use it as a force for good in this world and to help those with less privilege than I where I can. We only live once and I think a whole lot about how I want to be remembered when I am gone. When someone is building houses over my grave. I’d like to know somewhere out there I might be remembered fondly for doing something that was right in this world of wrongs.

I’m terrified to do the story, but I feel like it is my duty now and my responsibility. I am just so scared of fucking it up. What if I say something stupid or that can be taken out of context? This is such a touchy issue after all. I just want to do them justice. God help me. I just want them to be remembered.