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About 250 volunteers braved freezing temperatures Monday to spend the morning doing cleanup work at historic Evergreen Cemetery, the burial site for prominent African-Americans such as Maggie Walker. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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During a celebration after the cleanup work, Janith Libron tells how when she was growing up, her family would bring their lunch in shoe boxes when coming to clear brush at the cemetery. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Attendees at Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney says the effort to preserve and protect Evergreen Cemetery corrects an injustice surrounding the long-neglected gravesite. (Photo by Jay Paul)
"Today, we work to restore history together," Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney told a crowd of 250-plus volunteers at a special ceremony held at Evergreen Cemetery on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. "Today, we celebrate the permanent protection of Evergreen as a sacred public space that represents our shared values of freedom, service and opportunity."
Armed with a proclamation from the City of Richmond, Stoney gave his governmental blessing to a conservation easement limiting development on these hallowed grounds. The easement has been in the works since 2016 when the Virginia Outdoors Foundation set aside $400,000 from its Preservation Trust Fund to give to the Enrichmond Foundation — the 60-acre site's caretakers — for the graveyard's complete restoration, said to be one of .the nation's largest overhauls of a historic African-American cemetery.
"Since its founding in 1891 by Richmond's African-American community, historic Evergreen has served as a powerful monument to black achievement, community life and family bonds," Stoney told the crowd at the event, a celebratory affair that concluded a cold morning of cleanup efforts by local student organizations, church groups, family members and neighborhood volunteers.
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Mechanicsville resident Karri Messina was one of about 25 members of the Greater Richmond Church of Christ who participated in Monday's cleanup at Evergreen Cemetery. She brought her 12-year-old daughter, Kaedance, and her cockapoo, Toby. She says she wanted her daughter to see Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a "day on," serving the community, rather than a day off. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Created in 1891, Evergreen Cemetery is the resting place for as many as 20,000 African-Americans. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Joseph Kreidler
Evergreen Cemetery is located near the eastern edge of Richmond. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Joseph Kreidler
One of the damaged gravestones discovered on site (Photo by Jay Paul)
Many of the area's most towering historical figures, such as Maggie Walker and newspaper editor John Mitchell Jr., are buried at Evergreen, but this sprawling gravesite in the East End was allowed to fall into disrepair and neglect in the 1970s, and efforts to help it had stalled. Now, with help from an advisory team that recently concluded its first round of meetings to solicit input from the greater public, Enrichmond has started formulating strategies for a complete restoration. "The idea is to have a plan ready by the fall," says retired IT specialist John Shuck, a longtime volunteer. "One idea that emerged is to do something for the many military veterans that are interred here. But we don't know exactly what that will be yet."
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Morgan Jackson joined several other Virginia Commonwealth University student in pulling weeds and clearing brush at Evergreen on Monday. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Tajae Jackson (middle) and Destini Boyd (right) were among the Virginia Union University choir members attending Monday's event. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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JohnJason Cecil applauds during Monday's program (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Rai-Anne Larkins attended with her son, Charlie. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Morgan Jackson, a Virginia Commonwealth University student, was among those who spent the morning pulling weeds and clearing brush at Evergreen. She came with five other students who are part of a health care support group called Sisters and Stethoscopes. "Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a day of service," she says. "I think it's especially important on this day for black students, and everyone, to help the community with this, especially given the history."
"Martin Luther King Jr. said that anyone can be great because everyone can serve," says Enrichmond's Ted Maris-Wolf, Evergreen's caretaker. "We are keeping Dr. King's dream alive through a living mission. And it's inspiring to see 250 volunteers come out on a chilly day to be a part of something bigger than they are, to be a part of something great. I think it's what many of us need at this particular moment in our history and community life."
Afterward, Stoney talked about why it was important to hold this event on Dr. King's birthday.
"Dr. King had a dream for us to reconcile the differences between the races, and that also means to bring equity to what I think has been an injustice of not doing what was necessary to keep up a place like Evergreen. You've got Hollywood Cemetery across town that has found the support of many, this unfortunately has not. So the partnership created through the Virginia Outdoor Foundation, Enrichmond, and those who have worked here at historic Evergreen Cemetery will allow for this sacred ground to be protected for generations to come."
Some of the older graves at Evergreen Cemetery (Photo by Jay Paul)
