How we started Saving Our Ancestors’ Legacies

My Grandfather

We buried my grandfather, Roger Kenton Williams in 1989. There was a military salute to honor his service as Chief Morale Officer, US Navy/Coast Guard WW2. My Grandpa said, he said he had eyes in the back of his bald head, so I better not try and do that (whatever it was) when he wasn’t looking ‘cause he’d see me anyways. He loved his trains. He had tracks that wove in and out of the walls in his basement. He had such a kindness, to him. He laughed good. He played cards. He loved technology. He was always taking photos and making videos on VHS and Beta Cassette of us coming to visit, us planting a tree, us standing around, my grandma giving a speech, my grandma walking down the street, and endless hours of trains coming in and out of trainyards or the basement walls. He built the idea in my mind about freedom trains running underground. He started the Psychology Department and became Vice-President of Morgan State University. He paid his way through college by playing the piano. He loved his boyhood Boy Scouts Troop, number 24, and funded a scholarship for boy scouts in his name. He played football and he ran track. He was fast, he trained with his best friend who ran in the Olympics. He wrote at least one copyrighted song 

When he was sent home from the hospital, I was the only one of my siblings that did not go. I did not see my grandpa that last time. It has been almost 32 years since I last saw him smile, but I will never forget it. 

The Unburied Dead
On Thursday, June 24th, less than one month after Memorial Day, I unknowingly brought my nephew to bear witness to tattered flags laying in the dirt. My nephew and I visited Harrisburg’s Lincoln Cemetery. We spent hours looking for my grandpa’s headstone.

What we found:

How we started Saving Our Ancestors’ Legacies

Since that day at the end of June 2021, I have been organizing cleanups and raising awareness about this situation.

Lincoln Cemetery houses “influential and barrier-breaking people ,” including: Soldiers and Sailors, the Veterans of nearly every war, the former Slaves, who built our Nation, Black Newspaper publishers, 19th & 20th Century Medical Doctors, Opera Singers, School Board Presidents, graduates of Howard, Harvard, Hampton, Penn State University, Julliard, and many more. Harrisburg’s first Black Police Officer and some of our nation's first Black Teachers. People who worked on and created the Underground Railroad, above ground too. Poets, journalists, Coal Miners, Caterers, Mailmen and Contractors. The builders of our nation. They do not deserve this disrespect. No one does.

The dead should be allowed to stay buried.

We had to lift my great-grandparents headstone from where it had fallen face-down on top of my grandpa’s.

• Righting Our Great-Grandparents Headstone on TikTok

We pulled back years of dirt, vines and grass that left only a sliver of my grandfather's name, from being lost.

Every time we return to Lincoln Cemetery we find Human Bones. There are Unburied Bodies on the ground, on pedestals of dirt, beside freshly dug holes.

Since the 1800s, our ancestors and much of our extended family have been buried here, in Lincoln Cemetery. Over three generations.

Legacy

When we buried my grandfather, I stood with my grandma, Beryl Elisabeth Warner Williams, at his grave. She told me, in her straightforward way, that she would not be buried with him, when she died, because her body would be returned to Maine, and she would be buried where she was born. Then, likely at my signs of distress, she gestured broadly, and with an all-encompassing swoop of her upraised palm, and she said, "he is surrounded by family."

And, I saw there were many stones that surrounded him on that day. My great grandparents' headstone was just above his. All of the lots in the cemetery were full. My Grandmother’s hand encouraged me to see flags that flew at nearly every gravesite. I had no idea at my age that there had been so many Black Veterans.

Today, the section of the cemetery where my grandfather is buried (Section F) shows only a handful of grave markers. So, this Summer has been full of bittersweet victories.

My grandmother is having a building at the University of Maine named in her honor . It will be beautiful. And my grandparents would be proud.

And Yet....the Unburied Dead

While I and many others celebrate some of my family’s accomplishments, I am simultaneously fighting for people to respect their lives, and honor their bodies, even in death. How can I honestly think about honoring my Grandma when her husband cannot rest.

My grandparents dedicated their lives to each other. They both felt it was vitally important to honor the community in which they were born. They came into life and went out of it separately.

Launching a social media campaign, coordinating volunteer efforts, drumming up support, traveling back and forth, and digitizing over several thousand pages of burial records, has taken up a significant amount of time and money.

SOAL has been gathering more and more community support [a handful of people who live in the surrounding neighborhood, several other descendants of Lincoln Cemetery, and a dozen or so concerned citizens from all over the USA who learned about SOAL's efforts through news or social media.

However, the majority of effort over the last few months has just come from one of my grown kids, myself, and our English Mastiff, Appa (he works hard, but is rather ineffectual at chasing off foxes).

This is not my job, and I do not work for any agency related to the cemetery. I am just trying to honor my ancestors and rebury the dead.

The last time we were at the cemetery there were bones everywhere. I was horrified to see, for the first time, that the foxes had been chewing on some of the fresher ones. 

The holes that the foxes have dug are actually a network of tunnels that go from each corner of the cemetery and throughout the entirety of the grounds.

When I dream at night they have even carried my ancestor’s remains to one of the tool sheds.

This GoFundMe is a Descendent-Community Based Fundraiser

Estimation of the Total Cost of Burial, Recovery Expenses*:

Care of The Unburied Dead:

• Identification of Unburied Dead [$25k]
• Re-Interment of the Unburied Dead [$10-20k]
• Identification of the Dead in Mass Burial Plots [$15-25k+]
• Locating Existing Graves and Grave Markers [$20-30k]
• Mapping of the cemetery  [$2k]

Estimated Costs for Rehabilitation of Lincoln Cemetery: 

• Purchase of additional lawn care equipment [$2k]
• Travel expenses until maintenance is established [$50k]
• Recovery of grave markers [$10-25k]
• Replacement Grave Markers or Other Commemorative Monument agreed upon by Descendants [$10-25k]
• Perpetual Care Trust---or similar long-term care and financial stability plan [unknown]