GULFPORT, Fla. — Going to visit your loved one at their final resting place shouldn’t be an intense or impossible task. But it’s the case for thousands of families at a historic Pinellas County cemetery.
What You Need To Know
- Historic Lincoln Cemetery in Gulfport is a historically Black cemetery that opened back in 1926
- According to Greater Mount Zion AME Church Pastor Clarence Williams, owner of Cross and Anvil Human Services, half of the 8,000 people buried there are not identified
- Families of the descendants that are buried at the cemetery are trying to find answers on how they can locate their loved ones
- Williams said his nonprofit service is determined to unearth the history and use it as a teaching tool one day
- RELATED: Grave Betrayal: The Black history that lies beneath us
It’s a cemetery that has ties to some of the area’s richest history, but a lot of that history is feared to be lost if the people buried there aren’t identified.
When it comes to headstones, heroes and history, you don’t have to look hard to find any of those at the Historic Lincoln Cemetery in Gulfport. It’s located just outside St. Pete’s city limits.
For Tomeeka Wright, it’s what she can’t find that has her digging, trying to locate her son, who died in 1995.
“He was an infant born premature. He kind of passed away through the night and it was unexpected, so it was really traumatic for me,” Wright said.
She said she finally got her son a headstone, but overtime, the grass has grown over where she thought he might be.
“When most people pass away, you’re able to go visit them and their spot is usually taken care of. So, it’s very emotional, but I’m determined to find him. I’m not going to stop looking,” she said.
Her story is shared by other descendants, and it dates back decades. Tamiko Keaton, who can’t find four of her family members, believes they were buried at the Historic Lincoln Cemetery.
“It would be a beautiful thing for me to find them, because I love going to the cemetery and putting flowers on my mom and my uncle’s grave,” Keaton said. “Being able to sit out there and cry and say, ‘This is what I’m going through, I miss you,’ but I can’t come out here and do that. It’s hurtful.”
Sierra Clark poured out her hurt in a book she wrote about a quest to locate her grandparents.
“It’s been almost like a hamster wheel. Like you don’t have really answers. Like where are the grave records? It’s a lot of mumbo jumbo behind the scenes that’s stopping people from getting real answers,” said Clark.
There used to be a wooden sign nailed to a tree in the cemetery that said, “There are 4,029 unmarked graves here.” For a cemetery that’s had several different owners since it opened almost a hundred years ago in 1926, Greater Mount Zion AME Church Pastor Clarence Williams says that’s not a surprise, especially with Lincoln Cemetery being a historically Black cemetery.
Williams’ nonprofit, Cross and Anvil Human Services, took over the cemetery almost two years ago.
“When you talk about Black cemeteries in the Jim Crow era, there was no requirement, no record requirement. No records had to be kept,” he said. “We have some records, but the records are they’re not complete. They’re really kind of fragmented, for a lack of a better word.”
He said there are some graves that were there in the 1800’s, long before it was an official cemetery. And with about half of the 8,000 people buried there identified, Williams said his nonprofit is determined to unearth the history and use it as a teaching tool one day.
“There have been several anthropologists out here trying to determine how best we can go about doing that and I think they have scientific methods that they can find about when the person was buried, but as far as the name and identity, we may not ever know that,” he said.
It’s a hard truth these descendants like Wright aren’t willing to accept, especially not as long as they’re able to show up and keep searching for their loved ones.