Denton County Plans to Restore a Slave Cemetery

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PILOT POINT, Texas - Denton County Commissioners voted last week to begin restoring a forgotten cemetery believed to be the resting place of dozens of slaves.

"They were people who didn't have freedom for a long...many of them never had freedom and then this is their final resting place. This is the place where they went after living a horrendous life and then this is what it looks like."

Saint John's Cemetery, also known as the Old Slave Cemetery, is just South of Pilot Point on a private residential road.

Denton's NAACP Chairman, Willie Hudspeth says he felt heartbroken when he first laid eyes on it...And knew it was up to him to find a way to get commissioners to help clean it up.

"First I found out that the county has money to do this and I was angry at them for not doing it in the first place. I started really ragging on them because they hadn't taken care of the cemetery."

Hudspeth says he went to meetings every Tuesday to remind commissioners about the cemetery and one day his persistence made a change.

"I didn't know they had put on the agenda to vote whether or not they were going to spend the money and to my surpise..They voted to spend the money".

Now Hudspeth says he couldn't be more excited."But its going to be a wonderful thing to have that thing cleaned up, noticed and given some kind of significance and so the last remaining parts of those people's lives are going to be remembered now."

Future renovations are expected to begin next week.

Title: Denton County Plans to Restore a Slave Cemetery
Description: This 2016 Sherman Fox affiliate article briefly documents the efforts undertaken by Willie Hudspeth and the Denton County Commissioners court to restore the St. John's Cemetery.
Date: 2016-07-21
Source: Alexis Dominguez, "Denton County Plans to Restore a Slave Cemetery," KXII Fox 12, July 21, 2016, accessed April 10, 2018, http://www.kxii.com/content/news/Denton-County-plans-to-restore-cemetery-for-slaves-383895221.html.
Subject: memory; St. John's cemetery; modern coverage

Item sets: All St. Johns Items

Media: Sherman Picture.png; Denton County plans to restore a slave cemetery