Descendants Of Black Tenant Farmers In Virginia Speak Out As Ancestors’ Graves Displaced For Industrial Park

Plans to honor the sharecroppers buried there include a memorial archway at the new site.

The graves for hundreds of Black tenant farmers on a Virginia tobacco plantation will soon be moved to a dedicated burial ground.

However, the decision to do so has sparked backlash and mixed feelings from the surrounding community, especially as the displacement makes way for an industrial park. Opposers believe that the graves’ upheaval will disrespect those enslaved and exploited during their lifetimes. Supporters expressed their own hopes that the remains’ identification could lead to a proper reburial.

Despite this conflicting feelings, archaeologists have already began exhuming 275 graves, according to ABC News. Plans for a cemetery a mile away from the original site is also in development. The now above-ground remains, many of which belong to the tenant farmers and their families, currently await placement at a funeral home.

However, officials have initiated discussions with the descendants on processes to identify their ancestors, including genetic testing. As for the cemetery itself, a memorial archway may be created to note the significance of the burial ground. Jeff Bennett, a man whose great-great-great grandfather is one of the many buried in the area, thinks the additions will grant his ancestor a dignified resting place.

“I don’t think anybody would want their ancestors exhumed or moved,” said Bennett. “But for them to give us a lot of say so in the new cemetery, down to the design details and the plaques and memorials that we put up, I feel like (they’re) really doing it in a dignified way, in a respectful way.”

He added, “I feel like we’re reemphasizing the significance of our ancestors. It’s been generations since people used that area to bury people. And now we’re rediscovering their stories. And hopefully, we can continue to tell those stories to the next generations.”

However, the plantation’s gruesome history still bothers some descendants who want their ancestors’ remains to have peace. The Oak Hill plantation, owned by Samuel Hairston, was part of a family empire that thrived off slavery and, subsequently, sharecropping. A 1999 book, “The Hairstons: An American Family in Black and White,” details its 45 plantations and farms across the South, as well as the white and Black families that took the surname.

“It just seems that 100 or so odd years after their death, there’s still no rest,” shared another descendant, Cedric Hairston.

Despite the generations of families that lay on its grounds, mostly marked by moss-covered stone, the Pittsylvania-Danville Regional Industrial Facility Authority now owns 3,500 acres of this land. The public entity hopes to create a $1.3 billion battery production facility there, which would bring 2,000 jobs as well.

While Virginia courts granted a permit for the graves’ removal, they did so at the belief that descendants approved the matter. However, the descendants still want overdue recognition of the people who lived and died at the plantation. The industrial authority raised $1.3 million to fund the project, hiring consulting company WSP to manage it. They plan to hold a dedication ceremony after transferring the graves this month.