Summary:
In Gulfport, FL a woman named Vanessa Gray started to clean up and abandon cemetery, Lincoln Cemetery. Lincoln Cemetery is a historically black graveyard in her neighborhood. Vanessa started to restore the cemetery in December of 2015, by sweeping dirt, restoring plots and headstones, and picking up litter. Year later she had recruited volunteers to help her maintain and continue the cleanup of the cemetery. After a year Vanessa obtained the deed to the cemetery’s from the former owner. The Greater Mt. Zion AME church got wind about Vanessa work in the historically black cemetery and legislations began over the property. The church contested the validation of the deed stating that the Reverent of the church, Rev Clarence Williams …show more content…
Gray is the fact that she wanted to do something nice for the dead. Since she grow up in the area and seen the stage of neglected that the property continued to be in after all these years, now that she is old enough to do something she did. The fact that she did it for a whole year without having a deed, showed me that she just wanted to show respect for the dead and make the cemetery nice like it should be for family members to visit and be able to find their loved ones resting place.
Rev. Williams made me feel that his issues with the case is the fact that Ms. Grey is Caucasian and does not know the history of the people who are buried there. I believe that he feels strongly in the fact that an African American community should own the land and that the cemetery was created for African Americans. If, his real interest was cleaning up the property then, he would not be fighting Ms. Grey over the deed, instead I feel he would have tried to build a relationship with her and communicated with her to see what the church can do to help her maintain the cemetery. Rev. William could have also reached out to her and educated her on the history of the
In Gulfport, FL a woman named Vanessa Gray started to clean up and abandon cemetery, Lincoln Cemetery. Lincoln Cemetery is a historically black graveyard in her neighborhood. Vanessa started to restore the cemetery in December of 2015, by sweeping dirt, restoring plots and headstones, and picking up litter. Year later she had recruited volunteers to help her maintain and continue the cleanup of the cemetery. After a year Vanessa obtained the deed to the cemetery’s from the former owner. The Greater Mt. Zion AME church got wind about Vanessa work in the historically black cemetery and legislations began over the property. The church contested the validation of the deed stating that the Reverent of the church, Rev Clarence Williams …show more content…
Gray is the fact that she wanted to do something nice for the dead. Since she grow up in the area and seen the stage of neglected that the property continued to be in after all these years, now that she is old enough to do something she did. The fact that she did it for a whole year without having a deed, showed me that she just wanted to show respect for the dead and make the cemetery nice like it should be for family members to visit and be able to find their loved ones resting place.
Rev. Williams made me feel that his issues with the case is the fact that Ms. Grey is Caucasian and does not know the history of the people who are buried there. I believe that he feels strongly in the fact that an African American community should own the land and that the cemetery was created for African Americans. If, his real interest was cleaning up the property then, he would not be fighting Ms. Grey over the deed, instead I feel he would have tried to build a relationship with her and communicated with her to see what the church can do to help her maintain the cemetery. Rev. William could have also reached out to her and educated her on the history of the