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Discriminated against in life, they were forgotten by their community in death, buried in unmarked graves in the back of the Alta Vista Cemetery in Gainesville, Georgia.
The final resting places of the 1,146 black souls who once lived and worked there were anonymous. Though loved ones may have initially marked the spots with a homemade wooden cross or only a rock, the fragile tributes were lost to time.
For generations, segregation kept black and white Gainesville separate and unequal in life and death. On Sunday, those buried in obscurity will be revered by the town in a ceremony to unveil a monument to their lives and finally welcome them as fellow residents.
Though their names, birthdates and dates of death remain unknown, six benches, along with a seven-foot, black granite obelisk will stand in place of headstones for those interred in sections 16 and 17 of the cemetery.
The obelisk proclaims in gold letters: “This memorial stands as our testament that these citizens are important to this community and we embrace them as our own.”
“These are home folks,”…
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