A community ‘PACT’ to preserve, share historic black cemeteries
- March 26, 2015
- / Joe Vinson
- / community-dashboard
It started as an effort to keep the grass cut.
In 2013, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward contacted the University of West Florida’s Division of Anthropology and Archaeology asking for help.
The city was trying to figure out what to do with several cemeteries in historically African-American neighborhoods that had become overgrown from neglect. In many cases, it was difficult to determine who was responsible for the property.
“We needed to sort that out, and that’s where government can be helpful,” said Tamara Fountain, the city’s chief operations officer. “These are private properties, so we have to be careful about what we do. We’ve got to make sure that we’re considerate and respectful and asking the right questions.”
According to Margo Stringfield, a researcher at UWF’s Archaeology Institute, these concerns are not unique to Pensacola.
[caption id="attachment_20590" align="alignright" width="300"] Margo Stringfield[/caption]
“This is something that’s going on nationwide,” Stringfield said. “You have so many cemeteries that were established 100, 150 years ago, and as time goes by, often who is left as the owner-of-record doesn’t have much of a connection with the cemetery.”
That effort led to other questions how to restore, preserve and highlight these cemeteries as community assets, rather than leaving them to deteriorate as eyesores.
"The cemetery resources are not going anywhere,” said Stringfield. “We’re going to have to choose to let them be public nuisances and hazards and lose the information there, or we’re going to have to make them something that people will be proud to have in their neighborhood.”
Thus the Pensacola Area Cemetery Team, or PACT, was born.
Made up of professionals in the fields of history, archaeology, landscape maintenance, historic preservation and law, PACT’s mission is to “promote local historic cemetery preservation through an interdisciplinary approach to education and training and by fostering an informed stewardship base.” UWF has overseen the project and provided in-kind services.
“Over the last year, we have facilitated a series of meetings of people who bring different skills to cemetery restoration,” Stringfield said.
Sharing expertise
Those monthly meetings covered best practices in conservation and landscaping, how to document and map cemeteries using geographic information system technology, writing grants, responding to vandalism and other topics.
PACT utilized the years of preservation experience at St. Michael’s Cemetery to train volunteers and enlist professional restoration help. Much of the masonry restoration at St. Michael’s is handled by Monument Conservation Collaborative, a Connecticut firm that specializes in historic cemetery conservation.
By sharing transportation costs with the St. Michael’s Cemetery Foundation, PACT asked MCC to do some preliminary work at these cemeteries, including leveling headstones and repairing broken markers.
MCC’s masons did about $4,000 worth of restoration at these African-American cemeteries, but when they submitted their invoice, that work was marked off as an in-kind donation.
Keep Pensacola Beautiful, formerly known as Clean and Green, is the local affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit that empowers citizens to improve their communities. Their volunteers worked to maintain a trio of African-American cemeteries in the city: the Magnolia and AME Zion cemeteries that face each other across Brainerd Street on North A Street, and the Mount Zion cemetery at Cross and Guillemard Streets.
“We’ve been trying to keep those cemeteries in a condition that people can walk in and visit some history,” said Gwinn Corley, executive director of Keep Pensacola Beautiful. “But we can’t spend all our time down there cleaning three cemeteries, so PACT was put there to get interest from people to adopt these cemeteries.”
One of the goals of PACT was to create a manual of sorts to help guide the actions of future volunteers and cemetery stewards, and to give assistance to local governments. Corley said the manual is being finished up now and should be released in a few weeks.
Both city and county governments are pitching in funding toward the effort. Escambia County Commissioners allocated $15,000 in Tourist Development Tax funds toward maintaing the Magnolia, AME Zion and Mount Zion cemeteries.
At its meeting tonight, the Pensacola City Council will consider matching those funds.
There are a total of 14 cemeteries within city limits that PACT has identified for restoration, but Stringfield says that’s just the beginning.
“We needed something that we could manage, but what we’re doing within city limits can be applied countywide,” Stringfield said.
[caption id="attachment_20594" align="aligncenter" width="850"] UWF archaeologist Catherine Eddins examines a damaged headstone at the Magnolia cemetery on A Street.[/caption]