Evergreen Cemetery Clean-up – April 2
by Steve Levine
The bright sunshine made for a splendid day on Saturday, April 2nd as 23 HGS volunteers spent the morning supporting the community. Click to see some snapshots taken that morning.
HGS members were united with volunteers from ConocoPhillips, Houston Wheatley High School, and the National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists to make the Evergreen Negro Cemetery teeming with workers. Volunteers grabbed lawnmowers, weed-eaters, rakes and hoes in a coordinated effort to beautify the site. In a four-hour time span the cemetery was transformed to a presentable state with weeds cleared around the headstones, grass trimmed, and large dead trees cut and removed. HGS member Walter Light even used his four-wheel drive vehicle to pull down one of the larger trees.
The cemetery dates back to before the Civil War and served as a resting place for black slaves and freedmen. Originally on the site of a cotton plantation, only a quarter of the cemetery remains today from the original grounds that once encompassed 20 acres. Construction on I-10 likely removed a part of the cemetery. It is located 2 miles east of downtown Houston in the 5th Ward area proximal to Wheatley High School. LaVaughn Mosely and Dr. Woody Jones are leaders of a coalition called “Project Respect”, formed to restore the cemetery and to prepare the site to be designated a historic landmark with the Texas Historical Commission. Once a weed-infested lot with barely a headstone visible, it now is periodically maintained by various volunteer organizations and Wheatley High School senior class students.
In the near term, HGS members will assist in the installation of a wooden fence around the perimeter of the cemetery and a through the courtesy of the geoarcheological firm HRA Gray and Pape, will conduct a total GPS survey of the site. Future plans are to perform geophysical surveys with ground penetrating radar and magnetometers to identify unmarked graves, and hopefully Texas Historical Commission site recognition.
Prime Source Office Solutions was inadvertently omitted from the contributors of the Scholarship Benefit Party held on February 5. Please accept our apologies. Prime Source has provided the HGS with an exceptional quality HGS Bulletin each month since becoming our printer in 2002.