INDReporter

Good read: La.’s forgotten black cemeteries

In vine-chocked stands of trees and the weedy margins of cane fields in West Baton Rouge Parish, genealogist Debbie Martin plies her avocation: finding the forgotten black cemeteries lost to neglect and time.

The article by Terry L. Jones titled " Researcher maps hidden graveyards of slaves who once tilled Louisiana sugar cane fields" also features a photo essay.

An excerpt:

Hidden within the alcoves of trees and thick shrubbery are graveyards filled with African-American bodies. Most were a part of the enslaved population that once tilled the cane fields near where their bodies are now buried, as well as the descendants of many of those slaves.

Plantation owners had a moral obligation to bury the dead, Martin said, but they would do it on the parts of their land that were not farmable.

Read the story here.