Yoakum African American Cemetery gets improvements

The Yoakum Historic African American Cemetery has been around since 1893. Within the past two years, work has been done on sprucing up the graveyard.

Recently, coordinators of the cemetery hired an individual to come out and map the entire gravesite. Scott Fields is from Via Vista Cemetery Mapping Services. He came out to the graveyard and collected information in an effort to create accurate cemetery documentation.

“He came in with ground penetrating ultrasound and he walked the entire cemetery,” Yoakum Memorial Association President Vanita Cheeves said. “As he’s walking, he can detect the changes in the ground, and he can find graves. He penetrated the ground seven feet and detected the grave. He can tell if the grave is an adult grave or an infant grave. It took him four days to map the entire cemetery.”

Fields detected 456 unmarked graves. This is out of 185 marked graves. Fields said that this is most unmarked graves that he has detected in any cemetery that he’s mapped.

"My guys are still detecting more unmarked graves with metal detectors, so it’s pretty crazy that we are still finding extra bodies,” Cheeves said.

Cheeves believes that the reason there are so many unmarked graves at this cemetery was due to the fact that the bodies were buried during slavery times.

“Blacks at that time were not classified as humans,” Cheeves said. “At the time, some colored people didn’t have money. When they buried their family members, there was no headstone. Only the families at the time knew where they were buried. As the families pass and as time goes by, the bodies get lost.”

There are also several unmarked infant graves, according to Cheeves. No bodies have been buried at this grave site since 1997.

With this mapping, folks are also now able to easily access headstones of people who have passed.

“We are going to place a QR code at the sign of our cemetery and this will allow people to scan that code with their smart phones,” Cheeves said. “From there, people can type in a name of a headstone and the code will give them a GPS to where that headstone is located in the cemetery. This is quite state of the art.”

With the recent mapping of the cemetery, work has been done on cleaning the entire memorial center.

“We have cleaned off three acres,” Cheeves said. “We have gone in and cleaned off all of the brush, the weeds, and the trash. We shredded and hauled away lots of debris to where you can actually now walk the cemetery without getting cut up by brush and weeds. This took over a thousand volunteer hours to clean this cemetery.”

The Yoakum Economic Development Corporation presented a grant at their March 18 meeting to the Yoakum Memorial Association. The grant is for $10,000 and will be used towards the construction of a permanent fence at the African American Cemetery.

“This is to safe - guard and preserve the marked and unmarked burial sites from vandalism and theft and will preserve the historic integrity of the site,” YEDC Executive Director Genora Young said.

The Kluck Foundation will present a $10,000 grant to the Yoakum Memorial Association.

The African American Cemetery is located near the Yoakum Waste Facility on Dunn St. and Cheeves hopes this fence will protect the graveyard from the waste from that facility.

“It will also protect it from individuals that keep trying to drive into the cemetery from the brush piles,” Cheeves said. “That’s been a big issue.”

The Yoakum Memorial Association hopes that both mapping and cleaning the cemetery will assist in the longevity of the site.