Uncovering Historic Black Cemeteries in West St. Augustine

By Kaia Wright

When Robbie Boggs took Flagler College students to the Pinehurst and San Sebastian cemeteries, students were shocked that these sites were in their backyard.

Historically black cemeteries have experienced crude neglect. As the threats to them rise, more are disappearing from the landscape. This has become a major problem in the state of Florida and the St. Augustine community. 

“It is a conscious erasure of black cemeteries,” said Robbie Boggs, a public archeologist for the Florida Public Archeology Network, presenting the idea that developers and organizations are consciously disregarding historically black cemeteries. Yet the Florida Public Archeology Network (FPAN) has worked to counteract the effects all over Florida, and specifically in the community of St. Augustine. Boggs’ work as a public archeologist in the Pinehurst and San Sebastian cemeteries has shed some light on this problem.

“Not only are they forgotten, but some are pushed out. It’s not that their family doesn’t care, it’s that they don’t know they’re there. Families get scattered and pushed out, and descendants don’t even know where their family is buried,” Boggs said. 

This isn’t just the case of Pinehurst and San Sebastian. The Black Cemetery Network has worked to identify 140 black cemeteries, but due to unkept records, many across the country remain unknown. 

“We can say it goes back to the roots of the institutional racism that is the foundation of our country. And we can see that play out through these historic cemeteries,” Boggs said. 

FPAN has worked to uncover that these cemeteries are not being abandoned, but knowingly erased by people who may see them as developmental land. Graves are being transferred, dug up, built on, and ignored. 

“It goes beyond people forgetting about these cemeteries, but at times, people are consciously erased from the landscape because the land has become too valuable in Florida,” Boggs said. 

There are similar stories that have been seen in different sites around our state. In Clearwater, Fla. bones were found popping up in trenches, elementary schools, and swimming pools that had previously belonged to a historically black cemetery, according to CBS News. 

“Knowing the history of the country and the history of Florida, it’s not surprising that these sites that often are associated with communities that have been disenfranchised have been affected more negatively,” says Mary Minkoff, the Executive Director of FPAN. 

This is no different for the cemeteries in our community. Pinehurst and San Sebastian are the oldest segregated cemeteries in the state of Florida, yet they receive no state funding or historic recognition. They also reside in a community that has also historically been abandoned among the greater St. Augustine. 

However, just a stone’s throw away is the Evergreen Cemetery, which is a historically white Protestant cemetery. This cemetery is on the National Registry of Historic Places, yet its neighbors (Pinehurst and San Sebastian) still receive no recognition and can fall easily into disrepair. 

FPAN is working alongside many colleges and community groups to remember these sites. Among these is the West Augustine Improvement Society (WAIS), which maintains the Pinehurst and San Sebastian cemeteries. 

If communities continue to remember, to care, and not allow their history to be taken, the more those cemeteries remain a focus of the community’s history. This is an ongoing process of rebuilding, restoring and remembering. “The more these historic cemeteries get talked about, the more they get visited, and the safer they become. But people can’t care about what they don’t know,” Boggs said.