Over 1,600 African Americans buried in unmarked graves at Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery remembered with name reading event organized by the Louisville African American Heritage Center.
St. Louis Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 50,000 Catholics and even in death they were segregated.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The names of more than 1,600 enslaved people buried in unmarked graves were read aloud, allowing them to once again to be remembered.
Decon Ned Berghausen scoured through the St. Louis Cemetery in the Tyler Park neighborhood and uncovered the names of the people buried in a small section towards the back of the cemetery.
The cemetery is the final resting place for more than 50,000 Catholics and even in death they were segregated.
“I always find myself in cemeteries where there’s always a field where people, Black people, are buried in mass graves, or they’re bricked over or covered over or erased,” Hannah Drake with the Unknown Project said.
Berghausen is working with local activist and nationally recognized poet Hannah Drake to restore some of the dignity that was denied to the people buried there.
“I think it’s also a first step in a longer process, as part of a bigger story. And in our country, you know, there’s been a process of rediscovering Black cemeteries and working to preserve them, I think we’re a part of that bigger story here on this space,” he said.
The St. Louis Cemetery is located at 1167 Barrett Avenue.
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