[Images] Some of the markers at Oak Grove Freedman’s Cemetery commemorating the African American souls buried there. Photos by Christina Charles
With the help of a Johnson Service Corps fellow, in 2024 the Diocese of North Carolina’s reparations and restitution ministry began the work of researching, discovering and documenting those of African American ancestry buried in lost and neglected cemeteries. The stories of that work will be told in the months and years to come. Here, the Rev. Canon Lindsey Ardrey and Christina Charles share the origins of the project.
Carolina Biblical Gardens in Raleigh (near Garner) is the final resting place for my maternal grandparents. A cemetery set aside for African Americans in the 1950s, the grounds are immaculate, well-tended and provide stellar family care. Detailed maps display the different areas of the grounds, and records for who is buried where can be accessed by staffers on site. If you know that your family member is buried in Biblical Gardens, you will be able to find them easily. There have been many times when I have felt the pull to visit my grandparents’ gravesites, and I answered that nudging—the sacred space holding me and arresting time so that I could connect with my bloodline.
This was my most proximate dealing with cemeteries: a place full of love and care. When I stepped into this role as canon for our reparations and restitution ministry, a curious thing happened. As I ventured out to meet with church leaders and learned about the history of our diocese, burial grounds seemed to come up in conversation. I visited St. Luke’s, Salisbury, which has a cemetery across the street. Great monuments and headstones rose from the ground. To the right, there was a stone wall with a small cutout into an open grassy area. Remembrances etched in stone memorialized the African Americans buried in that space. But there were no markers, no headstones. No map to orient me, or friendly staff to assist.
Later, I met the Rev. Daniel Pinnell, rector of St. Mark’s and la Guadalupana, Wilson, in a Wilson coffeeshop, and he told me about his involvement with a citywide initiative to bless and reconsecrate Vick’s Cemetery, an African American cemetery that was destroyed by the city. Headstones were removed and, over time, the land became a place for trash and goofing around. After a long community-wide effort to honor those buried, and their descendants, the group called upon citizens to rededicate the space and clergy to walk and bless the land. As I drove to the cemetery, I passed a different sprawling cemetery, fitted with mausoleums, monuments and headstones. I drove further down the road and saw a vast open field where the rededication would happen.
Months later, the Rev. Mac Brown, then-new rector at St. Bartholomew’s, Pittsboro, reached out to me about the African American cemetery (St. James’) that they have been tending. The story of St. James’ (closed in the 1960s) is heartbreaking. Diocesan archival records and a cemetery are all the material culture that remain of this once thriving community. During my first visit, I walked into the forested area where St. James’ ancestors are buried. Shaded by tree cover, I padded through the sprawling plant life making home above unmarked graves. All I could think was: What a far cry this was from my visits with my grandparents, how different this was from the city-like dwellings of predominantly white cemeteries.
There is so much more to tell about each of those stories, many other sites and the stories of resurrection ready to be told. I plan to share those stories in more depth in future articles, but for now you will hear from our current Johnson Service Corps fellow, Christina Charles. It became apparent that we needed more support to explore what the Holy Spirit was trying to say to us about repair, healing and restoration with these burial grounds. Christina was tasked in these last several months with reading our complex diocesan history; partnering with our archivist, Lynn Hoke, to create and maintain a list of African American cemeteries affiliated with our diocese; and developing a process for burial ground identification, clearing and upkeep.
The Rev. Canon Lindsey Ardrey
Being on the outside, as a non-Episcopalian looking into the past while interning with the reparations and restitution ministry, I’ve found profound wounds, wherein land, people and faith are tightly bound together by a religious justification. Of course, this ruling institution had no legal obligation to steward the land, nor did they have an obligation to the native populations displaced nor to those they enslaved to work it. In many ways, this is because some of North Carolina’s most wealthy and powerful had ties to The Episcopal Church for quite some time. Despite claims of being rooted in faith, I wonder how such a heavenly call toward justice could ever be so deeply misconstrued as cruelty. Further, it begs the question: How many people have been turned away from God in the name of greed?
This question, as most things are, is impossible to answer concretely. Most obviously, we can’t answer because we have such a small record of non-white folks who have graced our congregations, lost through time or negligence. Looking deeper, we can’t answer because those in positions of privilege in our society most often protect their class privilege by any means necessary, causing spiritual harm and alienation to all involved. I feel this harm. Hundreds of years in the making, it has lodged itself deeply, almost silently, into the core of the church.
I’ve come to know that the job the reparations and restitution ministry has been tasked with involves not only dislodging this blockage but lighting a way back to something greater for all of our congregations, moving with faith towards something we may never have had before. It’s daunting, it’s heavy, and it’s necessary, in the name of justice and healing.
The people in my Johnson Service Corps cohort asked me why I would possibly be excited to work at the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina after all they’ve done, and I told them that I didn’t know how to explain it, but I felt called. It wasn’t a new call; after all, my dual major was Public Policy and Africana Studies, specifically to build frameworks for the sake of Black and Indigenous dignity, autonomy and health. However, this is the first time I’d gotten a clear chance to express this passion. I felt like I needed to work with Rev. Lindsey to learn how she’s able to redirect energy back to things that matter. If nothing else, it felt like I had to bear witness.
My cohort also asked me how I’m not afraid of working on something as morbid as gravesites, emphasizing how creepy it would be. I told them it was the least I could do, as they are my ancestors in a way. Not by blood, but by struggle and faith. I benefit both tangibly and in spirit from the things they’ve done in their lifetimes. In my own belief system, you honor both God and ancestors—the folks who have passed either in your lineage or those whose lives inspired you—through prayer, offerings and time spent together. You call on these varying higher powers to guide you through life and give you signs of what’s going on around you. So, if I’m honest, I was more afraid of what the living can do than those who passed on.
The few times I’ve been in the office, I have been slightly unnerved by the portraits of past bishops—how many would have seen me as human? It troubled me greatly in the beginning that people in alignment with the affinities of certain leaders may well be among those I’d be working with here and now, either through congregations or in the presiding body. My head would constantly spin with questions.
Without the more recent establishment of legal, and later moral, obligation, how many folks would turn a blind eye to the suffering of the less fortunate in the diocese? How many currently do this regardless of obligations? Does this mean these people are evil? At what point can you disconnect an institution from its roots in the name of forgiveness and moving forward? Can we move forward from the wounds of days past without dismantling everything that has been?
On reflection, once again, I conclude that there is no concrete answer to these questions. Many are not for any one person to answer, especially not the 23-year-old unaffiliated intern. Something I am qualified to do, however, is answer the call I felt to help. Who am I to decline justice? Who am I to deny metanoia?
Christina Charles
The Rev Canon Lindsey Ardrey is the canon missioner for reparations and restitution ministry in the Diocese of North Carolina. Contact her. Christina Charles served as a 2024-2025 Johnson Service fellow, and served as an intern at the diocese. Contact her via the communications department.
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