Battles in the Cemetery Power Structures Acting Upon African-American Mortuary Landscapes in the United States

Abstract

Walking down a sandy lane in the southern United States on the outskirts of the local community, your footsteps kick
up clouds of dirt that make the hot, dry air difficult to breathe. The light breeze does little to relieve the heat, and through the thick drone of cicadas, you hear the sound of a slow-moving river. Following the sound in hopes of taking a quick swim, you discover a wild-grown field of rolling mounds. Trees litter the area, growing twisted and knobbed around boulders, tall grasses sway in the light breeze, and native wildflowers provide homes to buzzing insects. When walking through the forgotten landscape, you find non-native flowers and trees such as periwinkle, yuccas, daylilies, and cedar trees are clustered about, and you start to notice pieces of broken glass, shards of ceramics and tobacco pipes (Baugher and Veit 2014 169-170; Brooks 2011, 180-181; Burg 2023, 549).