Much support from Pennsylvania for your championing of the Pebble Creek burial grounds. Since March, when the story made the rounds between Black history advocates, we've been following the coverage.

African American burial grounds across the country have been under siege from development pressures for many years now. Although interest in Black history has increased, protection for Black burial grounds has actually decreased with the higher rate of land development, and many have been lost in the last decade. Although this parcel includes both Black and white burial areas, your efforts on behalf of both are appreciated by the Black history community.

It is important to remember, and to remind local historians and community leaders, that Black cemeteries and burial grounds do not have a strong tradition of landscaping, as do Euro-American cemeteries and burial grounds. In fact traditional African American burial traditions embrace the desolate, wild nature of an unkempt cemetery, and decry the park-like nature of Euro-American cemeteries as a denial of the realities of death. This is why so many African American burial grounds are considered abandoned and therefore forgotten, when the opposite is more often true. For a wonderful discussion of this theme, read "Lay Down Body" by Roberta Hughes Wright and Wilbur B. Hughes III.(1996 Visible Ink Press)

We're fighting our own battle against development in Chester County, at the Coatesville African Union Church Cemetery http://pages.prodigy.net/stanley.way/coatesville/

George F. Nagle
Harrisburg, PA
editor, Afrolumens.org http://www.afrolumens.org

Mr. Nagle,
I am very disappointed to respond that your post is affirmative with the actions here in VA. After making several attempts to reach descendants of those buried in the slave cemetery (Green family members) as well as the Hanover County Black Heritage Society, the NAACP and former Governor Wilder, I have had no response from any of them.

I have attempted to have at least one letter to the editor printed in three different newspapers which states:
"It is interesting to note the number of memorials and museums being established to remember slaves and slavery around the nation. I am only astounded that there is more interest in building memorials and museums for these slaves than protecting the final resting places of slaves and their descendants, as is the case in Hanover County in the Pebble Creek
subdivision. What a sincere tribute it would be if the final resting places were protected and treated with the respect they do deserve."
To date, it has not printed in any of the three newspapers.

I am astounded that any privately-owned cemetery, regardless of race, is being allowed to be handled with such disrespect and disregard. It is heart-breaking. I only hope that our Virginia lawmakers will follow-up on promises to review these present Codes and see to it that NO ONE's gravesite is EVER handled in this manner again.

To date, the slave cemetery has not been exhumed. Instead, in lies on three parcels of privately owned properties in the Pebble Creek subdivision and partially in the roadway. I am amazed that VDOT was allowed to construct a cul-de-sac on graves as well. I have made attempts to reach Governor Warner about this, but have yet to hear back from his office on this matter.

All I can suggest at this point is that we continue to fight for what is right and for those who can not speak for themselves. It matters not to me what race or status quo these people are. EVERYONE deserves a respectful final resting place.

Sheri Millikin
whoucisme@mindspring.com

Two of three newspapers to which I submitted my letter to the editor have printed them. Those would be the Mechanicsville Local and the Hanover Herald Progress. The Richmond Times Dispatch has yet to do so.
At least the county residents are being kept informed.