South Carolina Ping 
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Posted on 08/17/2020 2:25:19 PM PDT by buckalfa
CLEMSON, S.C. — The locations of more than 200 possible unmarked graves have been found in Woodland Cemetery next to Memorial Stadium on the Clemson University campus.
The graves were found by ground-penetrating radar and are believed to date back more than a century, according to a release from the university.
"The graves are thought to be those of enslaved people who worked from about 1830 to 1865 on John C. Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation and later as sharecroppers and Black laborers, including convicted individuals involved in the construction of Clemson College from 1890 to 1915," the release said.
All are believed to be African Americans, the release said.
Dr. Rhondda Thomas, the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson whose research and teaching focuses on early African-American literature and culture, will be engaging with area families to better understand who might be buried in the Woodland Cemetery and to seek guidance on what steps the university should take moving forward to honor them.
The school has hired a dedicated historian to assist Dr. Paul Anderson, the university historian who is leading the research.
All of the work will be published to a website Clemson started to document the university's role in Woodland Cemetery and give voice to the African Americans who are buried there, the release said.
“We are committed to taking all the critically important actions to enhance these grounds, preserve these gravesites and to ensure the people buried there are properly honored and respected,” said Smyth McKissick, chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Clemson is dedicated to developing and sharing a full and accurate history of this area and to develop a preservation plan to protect it and those who rest here.”
Testing shows disturbed soil roughly five feet beneath the surface indicating possible burial sites. Continued investigation of the cemetery could identify additional potential burial sites in the coming weeks and months.
Many of the possible graves are in an area of Woodland Cemetery to the west of the Calhoun family plots long thought to be the site of graves of African Americans dating back to the 1800s, university officials said.
Clemson requested a court order in September 1960 approving the school’s plan to locate graves in this area marked with fieldstones and to move them several hundred feet to an area to the south. The number of graves moved is not yet known, but it now appears many are still in their original location. Efforts to identify and preserve these original historic gravesites in 1992 and again in the early 2000s were inconclusive.
The school installed protective fencing around a roughly one-acre section to the south in 2002 and identified it as the “Site of Unknown Burials.” Twenty-five of the gravesites recently revealed by radar are located within and around this fenced area.
Clemson erected historic markers at Woodland Cemetery in 2016 designating the area as the site of the Fort Hill Slave and Convict Cemetery and acknowledging the roles played by enslaved and convicted individuals buried here.
So, we’ve known about this for over 20 years, and we’re just now hearing about it in The Year of the Riots?
Yet again, proving this country was built by POCs.
200 more votes for Biden-Harass
Is there some reason there has been a shift from a simple noun form to adjective + "person"? I've noticed it a lot recently and I didn't know if the "language bosses" have determined that calling someone a "slave" is bad but "enslaved person" will improve their self esteem.
Glad to hear that they are hiring a dedicated historian to help. Wouldn’t want a slapdash historian or a nonchalant historian on the job.
Racism! Racism! Racism!
They’ll lose interest real quick like if the burials turn out to be Confederate soldiers.
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It’s EVERYWHERE.
Government p-run battlefield parks and so on are now rife with constant worship of slaves, AND changing the language.
We discovered the language thing last year on our trip to the Fredericksburg area. Every single place that could possibly mention slaves had to use “enslaved laborers”. Husband and I rolled our eyes. I looked it up.
So some seem to think that calling a person by a straight-forward noun “dehumanizes” them. Using adjective-noun makes them more human.
Whatever.
Also note this summer we now must capitalize “black”. If you don’t use the (stupid) term AA.
As a graveyard nut, involved in a group of such for 20 years, I can tell you this is not unusual or more perturbing than the hundreds of desecrated “white” graveyards there are.
What will never be mentioned is that these slaves were put there by Democrats.
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