Category Archives: Black History

-Alabama, Black History, Cemeteries, National Register of Historic Places, Signs

The Selma to Montgomery March Highway Sites

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In March 1965, there were three attempts to march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, to secure voting rights for Black Americans. The final successful attempt began on Sunday, March 21, 1965, with 3,000 people walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to start the march and ending at the steps of the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, on Thursday, March 25.

The first campsite was located approximately 7.8 miles away from Selma on the land of David Hall. One of the homes still stands today. From this campsite, many people returned to Selma because the highway was narrowing and Lowndes County had imposed limits on the marchers’ movement through the county. You can read a fuller history of Campsite One here.

The march from the first campsite to Rosie Steele’s farm was just over fifteen miles. Ms. Steele was a farmer and general store owner. Unfortunately, her home and store were lost in a fire in 1967. (I searched and could not find whether this was an accidental fire or arson. If anyone knows, please message me.)

For a fuller description on the Rosie Steele farm, please read the National Park Service’s information on the site.

The next campsite was just over 12.5 miles away. The marchers were drenched after spending the day in the rain. When they arrived at the final campsite, the grounds were incredibly muddy. Robert Gardner put down hay and tried to improve the conditions of the campsite. For a fuller story on Campsite 3, please read the National Park Service’s information.

The final campsite was in Montgomery, Alabama, at the City of St. Jude, a Black Catholic church.

Viola Liuzzo

Along the route is a memorial to Viola Liuzzo, a white woman who was murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan. She and Anthony Moton, a 19-year-old Black man, were shuttling marchers back to Selma from Montgomery. They stopped in Lowndes County to get gas, where they were met with threats. Once back on the road, four Klansmen pursued them, attempted to run them off the road, and fired into their car, killing Liuzzo. Thankfully, Moton was not injured. Covered in Liuzzo’s blood, he remained motionless, causing the Klansmen to assume he was dead as well. After they left, Moton was able to flag down help.

The murderers were captured within 24 hours and were found guilty of their crimes.

-Alabama, Black History, Houses

Amelia Boynton’s Home in Selma, Alabama

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The historic bungalow located on Lapsley Street was built in 1916 was initially owned by Booker T. Washington. Later owned by the Amelia and Samuel Boynton, the home played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement. The home served as a hub for civil rights leaders during the Selma voting rights campaign. Civil rights illuminaries, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, Diane Nash, C.T. Vivian, and Bernard Lafayette, gathered here. The first draft of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was written here.

The house is listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, years of neglect have left it in severe disrepair. After acquiring the property in 2008, the Gateway Educational Foundation completed emergency repairs but the building remains at risk. The foundation hopes to restore the home and transform it into a museum that will celebrate Selma’s civil rights history,

Amelia Platts Boynton Robinson

2015 image from Wikipedia

Amelia Platts Boynton Robinson was a widow at the time of the 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery, as her husband died two years previous. She was one of the organizers of the march. On Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, she was towards the front of the marchers where she was beaten unconscious by a white police officer. Photographs of her were featured in newspapers across the world. She later joined President Lyndon B. Johnson for the signing of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Mrs. Robinson remain involved in politics and civil rights until she passed in 2015 at the age of 110.

For a fuller biography, please read her entry on Wikipedia.

-Georgia, Black History, Cemeteries, Churches and Temples, Vernacular Headstones

Documenting O’Neal AME Church Cemetery in Hampton, Georgia

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In 2024, I photographed the ruins of the O’Neal AME Church. At the time, I had not realized the cemetery was across the street, hidden in the woods. Recently, the cemetery has been under threat because a massive data center is being built around it. My friend and I decided to visit the cemetery. We were both interested in seeing how close the clearing for the data center was to the property lines and wanting to document any remaining headstones.

We walked the boundary lines of the cemetery. First, the cemetery is completely fenced in, with an approximately 75-foot buffer.

One of the vernacular markers in the cemetery

The cemetery itself was abandoned long ago based on early headstone photos. There is a mixture of professionally engraved headstones, vernacular, Eldren Baileys, and at least two dozen fieldstones. All cemeteries are important, but this cemetery contains the remains of people who were likely enslaved based on birthdate. The last obituary I could locate is from 1967. According to FindAGrave, the last burial appears to be in 1967. From historic aerials, it appears the church’s roof collapsed sometime in the late 1950s.

Reuben (1810-1890) and his wife, Eliza, are documented in the census records for Henry County for 1870 and 1880.
Eliza Keith (1820-1895)
Thomas Thrasher
The metal fence likely marks off a family plot.

Based on tax records, the ruins of the O’Neal AME Church will likely be demolished in the coming year, since the company “Hampton Technology Park,” out of Atlanta, owns the land being developed now and the land where the church is located. The address for Hampton Technology Park is 1776 Peachtree Street, which lists a few real estate companies as tenants, so further research would be needed to determine who owns the land.

The images below are from Qpublic.

The cemetery boundary
Land owned by Hampton Technology Park

The cemetery should be restored. The people buried here help tell the story of Henry County. Hopefully, there will be enough interest to save it.

The penny indicates someone visited this headstone and left it as a memento.
In Black cemetery traditions, a pitcher can represent a connection or passage to the afterlife. Until people started stealing the items, these grave goods could be found frequently in Geechee Gullah cemeteries.
Black History, Cemeteries, Illinois

The Grave of Emmett Louis Till in Burr Oak Cemetery (Alsip, Illinois)

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Emmett Louis Till (1941–1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted and murdered in Mississippi after being accused of flirting with Carolyn Bryant, a white store owner’s wife. His lynching became a national story when his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral so the world could witness the brutal violence inflicted on her son.

For a more detailed account, Wikipedia provides a good summary.

He was buried in Burr Oak Cemetery on Chicago’s South Side. When a friend and I visited the cemetery the day after a rainstorm, the grounds were waterlogged and poorly drained. We were unable to approach his grave without wading through several inches of standing water. It is unfortunate that the cemetery contends with this issue, as my friend and I visited several other cemeteries that day, none of which had significant standing water.

-Georgia, Black History, National Register of Historic Places, Rosenwald Schools, Schools

Cross Roads Rosenwald School-Dixie, Georgia

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The Cross Roads School is a Rosenwald school built just outside of Dixie, Georgia in Brooks County. It was built as a two-teacher plan school in 1927. The school was in use until 1959.

In 2025, the school was listed on the Georgia Trust’s Places in Peril. There is a commitment from the school’s alumni and the local community to restore the schoolhouse into a community center.

-Georgia, Black History, Cemeteries, Churches and Temples, Vernacular Headstones

Mountain Creek AME Church-Sumter County, Georgia

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Mountain Creek AME Church is located in Sunter County. The main church building was constructed in 1890. The fellowship hall was added in 1990.

This building was on the property. The abandoned piano makes me wonder if it was the old Sunday school. It could have been an old school. I don’t believe it is an old church because tar paper isn’t typically used on churches.