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PILOT POINT — Denton County NAACP President Willie Hudspeth looked back on two months of hard work Saturday morning at St. Johns Cemetery, a long-neglected 2-acre burial site near Pilot Point where an estimated 490 African-Americans are buried.

Hudspeth and a group of volunteers have been working to clear the site, once completely covered by thorny brush, for two hours every Saturday. Denton County recently set aside about $20,000 to help revitalize the cemetery, and county workers are expected to take over the cleanup effort in about two weeks.

But before the county steps in, Hudspeth wanted to highlight John White, a 73-year-old Pilot Point resident whose ancestors are buried at St. John.

“I see this project here as the opportunity to bring the races together, to bring people together, and let us be able to see and value their lives,” John White said as he stood over the tombstone of his great-uncle J.D. White. “Many of the people here, they have sacrificed.”

John White has several ancestors buried in the cemetery, though the graves of others still could be hidden in the thick brush, he said. Only about a quarter of the cemetery has been cleared, but White said several relatives on his mother’s and father’s sides are buried there.

On Saturday afternoon, under a canopy of trees and trickling rain, White thanked the volunteers for their work.

“Without you, I would not have been able to stand here today and see my great-uncle. … This is where I came from. I’m a part of him,” he said.

Many tombstones, some belonging to former slaves, have been reduced to fragments. They date to the early 1900s and late 1800s.

Workers soon will attempt to identify every burial site, but that could be a complicated process because the bones have since decomposed, Hudspeth said.

Once workers clear the area, he said he will have another meeting for those who dedicated their time for the project. Shelly Tucker, who helped clear brush for about five weeks, said she has been making family trees for some of the people buried at St. Johns, and she is ready to see the completed project.

“For me, there’s this connection to those that have gone on,” said Tucker, who leads the Ghosts of Denton tours on the downtown Square. “I get excited about tracing people down in history. ... Without what Willie has done, nobody would have ever been out here.”