If anyone had told me years ago that I would communicate almost daily with a white woman whose ancestors almost certainly played a role in enslaving many of mine, I would not have believed them.
Not only do she and I share ties to a small area of south-central Virginia, we also share a cause. We are part of a coalition of blacks and whites trying to save ruins and a slave cemetery on an old plantation site in Danville, Va.
This example inspired me to look for books on Diversebooks.net that detail the history of cemeteries and plantation structures lost through development or neglect. Preservationists have spared many others across the country from this fate. In August, my Diversebooks.net blog usually features books about travel destinations. This year’s selections deal with cemeteries, plantation houses and haunted places across the South.
Danville was the last capital of the Confederacy and the hub for the rich tobacco trade made possible by the labor of ancestors of African-Americans. As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, it seems fitting to remember those who died during slavery and whose unpaid labor contributed to building the wealth of this country.
The Danville cemetery is the burial site of many African-Americans held in slavery by a succession of highly distinguished white families, including founders of the city. After a long struggle on her own against development forces who want to uproot the graves, a descendant of some of the slaveholders enlisted the aid of black families who might be descendants of the enslaved. Some are also documented as descendants of a white owner.
My new friend, Anne Evans, a Danville native who lives in California, has various genealogical connections through generations of the slaveholder families, who bear surnames that appear over and over on her family tree and on mine. Dodsons are among them, but so are surnames from almost all the branches of my vast paternal and maternal families. Every ancestor of mine born since Africans were kidnapped and brought to America had roots within a small radius of the cemetery. They trace back six or seven generations, mostly through the well-chronicled Hairston family. My own parents were born nearby.
Through Facebook, several white and black descendants of families associated with the Old Fearn Plantation of Danville, Va., mostly researchers, have formed an alliance to prevent destruction of the cemetery without assurance of proper study of all of the graves and planning for a dignified reburial and a memorial. Fearns were early owners of the site and were among the founders of Danville. Our coalition has written officials, established an online petition and appealed to our far-flung and huge family networks for support through social media and at various reunions.
