According to activist Wanda Brandon, bulldozers clearing trees at Washington Park Cemetery, an historically African-American burial ground, recently broke half a dozen headstones into pieces.
St. Louis County Councilwoman Hazel Erby posted her outrage to Facebook: “This is criminal! It’s time to come together to stop this blatant disrespect! I was told that there is a company who shows up during weekdays with bulldozers trampling the tombstones.”
Kevin Bailey, who owns most of the cemetery, said the bulldozers were hired by DDI Media, which owns part of the land where it controversially has erected billboards, and they were working only on their section of the land. DDI offered to reimburse the cost of the crushed gravestones, Bailey said.
“There was vegetative growth being extracted from the property and, unfortunately, some headstones were damaged in the process,” Bailey said. “The issue was brought to my attention along with a resolution. The company accepted full responsibility and are in the process of replacing every headstone disturbed and roughly 22 more that needed attention.”
For Brandon, that was not enough.
“This is further desecration,” Brandon said, “if our relatives’ headstones are being broken up. I don’t care if you’re replacing them, you shouldn’t be destroying them in the first place!”
Over the past month, anger and confusion have been building among community activists around Washington Park Cemetery. It has been falling into disrepair since the 1980s and, in the words of many activists, has been “desecrated” by the placement of three billboards in a plot of land along the edge of the property owned by DDI Media since 1986.
Bailey purchased the bulk of the cemetery for a minimal price after it had fallen into disrepair under its previous ownership, but has not been able to raise the funds to restore much of the cemetery.
“We’re doing this to lift up our ancestors,” Brandon said of her efforts to remove the billboards and clean up the cemetery.
Aside from hosting days of cleaning around gravestones, pulling weeds, and underbrush removal, Brandon has been busy building her support base. Over the past month, she has visited both the St. Louis County Council and the Berkeley City Council.
Brandon’s goal is the removal of the billboards and beautification of the whole cemetery. When she spoke before the Berkeley City Council, she said, “They wanted to know what is it that I wanted. They said, ‘So the bottom line is, you’re trying to get the billboards out of the cemetery?’ And I said yes.”
Thus far, DDI Media shows no sign of removing the billboards – despite the actions of some advertisers, such as Maxine Clark of Blueprint4Summer, who expressed concern over the billboards’ location. However, one thing advertisers, cemetery owners, volunteers, and activists can agree on is that there is still much work to be done on the cemetery.
“I wish that Washington Park Cemetery could receive the attention, help and respect that other cemeteries receive,” Bailey said in a statement to The American. “I wish that the people whose loved ones are interred at the cemetery [would] come forward and help.”
Contact Wanda Brandon at wanda_brandon@yahoo.com to help clean up the cemetery and advocate for removal of the billboards.
