They Call Them Slave, Wheat Cemetery, Oak Ridge Tennessee.  There are between 90 and 100 slaves are buried in Wheat Cemetery without a marker to remember their names.  This photograph contains 100 former slaves ghosted in to represent a face to those who were not given a proper headstone to hold their name. *Information provided by the monument marker at the grave site*

Holding Them, Slave Pen, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.

“The Slave Pen, built in the early 1800's, was recovered from a farm in Mason County, Kentucky, less than 60 miles from the Freedom Center. The structure was used as a holding pen by Kentucky slave trader, Capt. John W. Anderson, to temporarily keep enslaved people being moved farther south for sale. The slave pen played an integral role in the greater story of the internal slave trade in America.” The slaves in this photograph are representative of the slaves held in this pen, in years past.  Information provided by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center,  http://freedomcenter.org/exhibits/the-slave-pen*

The Five, Soldier’s National Cemetery, Gettysburg Pennsylvania.  The soldiers added to this image are representative of the five soldiers buried in this cemetery. There were no African/Black soldiers on record in the battle at Gettysburg.  According to research, there have been five African/Black soldiers buried in the cemetery to date. “The first African-American Civil War soldier to be buried there was Henry Gooden, 127th USCT, in 1884 (this was a re-burial, since Gooden had originally been buried at the Adams County Almshouse burying-ground, however, no others were buried there until 1936” (Gates Jr, The Root). “There were four African American soldiers, who served in volunteer regiments in the U.S. Army during the Spanish American War, died of disease in the fall of 1898, and were buried in the cemetery. Their names and dates of burial were Clifford Henderson (Sept. 8), Emmert Martin (Nov. 6), and Nicholas Farrell (Nov. 28), all of the 9th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Battalion, and Harry S. Prager (Sept. 19), of Company H, 2nd Tennessee Infantry” (Scott, Wordpress).  *Information provided by the following sources, and are constantly researched and updated: 

http://www.theroot.com/which-black-man-was-responsible-for-burying-bodies-at-g-1790877294

https://npsgnmp.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/a-burial-in-the-soldiers-national-cemetery/*

 Four Girls, Ebenezer 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham Alabama, was originally established as the First Colored Baptist Church of Birmingham in 1873.  It served as a church, meeting place, and lecture hall to such people as W.E.B. DuBois, Mary McLeod, and during the Civil Rights activism, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.  After the bombing of the church on September 15, 1963 that killed four girls and left 20 injured, the church and community persevered and received over $300,000 to help restore the church.  The church is currently open for visitors to tour the sanctuary. Visitors may pay their respects to the four girls, Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley, who lost their lives at the memorial to side of the church on the sidewalk where the bomb was detonated.  A silk heart wreath along with a live wreath with the names of the four girls stands in honor of their stolen lives.  The four girls in this photograph are representative of the four girls who died unfairly for the color of their skin.  *Information provided by 16thstreetbaptist.org*

This image is not of Carole Robertson, but stands as a representation of her sacrifice. 

  Addie Mae Collins, 14 years of age, lost her life on September 15, 1963 at 10:22 am with three other girls who were in the basement of the Ebenezer 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.  The Ku Klux Klan bombed the church in a racial hate crime. It wasn’t until 1977 the first bomber was convicted and sentenced to a life in prison, and subsequently in 2001 & 2002, the other two bombers were discovered, yet one died before being sentenced.  The original marker for Addie Mae’s grave was a wooden cross, and it was replaced in 1990 with the headstone in this photograph.  In 1998, due to the unkempt state of the cemetery, Addie Mae’s sisters had her body exhumed to move her to a nicer cemetery, but discovered her body was not in the grave.  Currently, Addie Mae’s body is still missing, and there is much speculation from vandals robbing graves to the fact that medical universities used to harvest bodies from black cemeteries to perform research.  It is my hope; they will eventually discover Addie Mae’s remains in a different location in the cemetery and the spot was just mismarked.  *Information provided by Biography.com & abc3340.com*

Martin Luther King Memorial, King Center, Atlanta Georgia.  Martin Luther King Jr. and His wife, Coretta Scott King are kept in crypt at the King Center surrounded by the reflecting pool that stretches down the walkway into the King Center.  The crypt looks across to the eternal flame which represents the “continuing effort to realize Dr. King’s dream of the Beloved Community which has vision for a world of justice, peace and equality for all mankind.”  This photograph represents the lives who lived in oppression and injustice from slave ships to freedom marches to help us all remember what we are fighting for with racial injustice and discrimination in this world to actualize Martin Luther King’s dream into reality.  *Information provided by thekingcenter.org/about-dr-king*

Organist, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta Georgia, the images in this photograph are representative of Alberta Williams King, the mother of Martin Luther King Jr, and Deacon Edward Boykin who were tragically shot in the church on June 30, 1974.  Mrs. King was shot in the face twice while sitting at the organ and then the organ was pushed on top of her.  Edward Boykin was close by in the pulpit when he was shot.  The shooters original target was Rev. King Sr., but the shooter chose to kill the person closest to Rev. King Sr.  It was a black on black crime and the reason given for the hate crime, “Black ministers were a menace to black people and must be killed.”  This order came to him from God. One year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, his brother, A.D. King drowned, then 6 years later Alberta King was assassinated in 1974, and Rev. King Senior died in 1975.   *Information provided by nytimes.com/1995/08/22/obituaries/m-w-chenault-44-gunman-who-killed-mother-of-dr-king & atlantamagazine.com/civilrights/the-murder-of-alberta-king and The King Center in Atlanta Georgia*

Vivian Malone Jones, Westview Cemetery, Atlanta Georgia, was the first African-American graduate of the University of Alabama. “They were already working with another Black student, James Hood, and a district judge ruled in favor of the pair entering the university. However, then-governor George Wallace, flanked by armed guards, headed the students off at the door on June 11, 1963.  Despite Malone Jones and Hood having legal right to enter, Wallace made a political stand and kept his promise to uphold segregation in the state, using the now infamous slogan of “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever.”  In 1965, Vivian obtained a business degree and went on to be a civil rights activist for the United States justice department in Washington DC, until her retirement in 1996.  *Information provided by theguardian.com/news/2005/oct/18/guardianobituaries.usa & blackamericaweb.com/2014/05/30/little-known-black-history-fact-vivian-malone-jones/*

Martin Luther King Jr., Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta Georgia was founded in 1886, is in the Sweet Auburn section of Atlanta where Martin Luther King Jr and Senior were pastors to the community.  The church is now a historically registered place, and accepts visitors, while a new Ebenezer Baptist Church functions across the street.  When you visit the sanctuary, you will hear the sermons of Martin Luther King ringing out through the church as you sit and listen from the pews.  *Information provided by historicebenezer.org*

Cudjoe Lewis, Africatown Cemetery, Africatown Alabama is located a few miles outside of Mobile Alabama.  Cudjoe’s real name was Oluale Kossola and was born in what is now Benin in West Africa.  “A man named William Foster, the captain of an illegal American slave ship called the Clotilde, purchased Cudjoe and 109 other enslaved young people (from various parts of west Africa) at the bequest of Timothy Meaher, a local Mobile plantation owner and shipbuilder. Allegedly, Meaher had made a $100,000 bet that he could successfully sneak slaves into Alabama right under the nose of the federal government. This proposition was considered so risky that when the crew of the Clotilde discovered their cargo was to be illegal slaves, Captain Foster had to double their pay to prevent a mutiny. Captain Foster, who transferred his illegal cargo of humans to a new ship, and burnt and scuttled the Clotilde in Mobile Bay to destroy any evidence of his crime.”  The slaves eventually settled in what is now Africatown and the land they live on is owned by the Meaher family, descendants of Timothy Meaher.  *Information provided by historybuff.com/this-alabama-community-was-founded-by-last-slaves-illegally-brought-to-america-1-ZrYRD6Gkqmp9*

Liverpool Hazzard, just off Butler Cemetery, Darien, Georgia, was known for telling tales of the Butler slaves and was charge money to sing boating songs to tourists.  He was 85 when he died and was a “contributor to Lydia Parrish’s Slave Songs of the Georgia Sea Islands, a fine history of slave song and dance.” *Information provided by Major Butler’s Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family by Malcolm Bell Jr.*

Four photographs from this series recently displayed in the Blowers Gallery inside the Ramsey library at UNC-Asheville.  

Four photographs from this series recently displayed in the Blowers Gallery inside the Ramsey library at UNC-Asheville.