Breathing life into the dead 

By Kaia Wright

Buried within St. Augustine is the wife of the founder of the first African American segregated school in St. Augustine. Her grave was abandoned and cracked with a tree growing through it. This is one of many examples of neglect to historically black cemeteries in our community. 

Two historically African American cemeteries lay abandoned in this city, while neighboring cemeteries  such as the historically white cemetery, Evergreen, lay perfectly preserved.

The Pinehurst and San Sebastian cemeteries are two of the oldest segregated cemeteries in the state of Florida. These cemetery sites are home to graves spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Writers, veterans, school teachers, civil war and world war soldiers are buried here, yet these sites have been pushed aside and forgotten within the St. Augustine community.

San Sebastian, the older of the two cemeteries, was established in 1886 with the first burial believed to have been in 1879. Its neighbor, Pinehurst Cemetery, was established in 1914 according to the Florida Public Archaeology Network. 

The blatant disregard for African American Cemeteries is ever prevalent in St. Augustine and spans throughout  America, as care to them has ceased due to lack of funding, care, and racism within communities.

“You could ride by this area and not even tell it was a cemetery” says the President of the West Augustine Improvement Society, Willy Cooper Sr. He is an ex-veteran and West St. Augustine local, and Cooper has been a part of the WAIA since 1982 after serving in the military. 

Cooper explained his experience with the cemeteries and how, growing up in West King, no one ever did much about taking care of them. After being neglected for years, they fell into the care of the city of St. Augustine. The city continued the line of neglect, and thus the ownership was transferred to the WAIA for the past 20 years. 

Few people were aware of the cemeteries throughout the years before they were put into the care of the WAIA. The only path you walk through was made by family members whose parents were buried there.

“There were two sisters and they made a path from the fence. The path they cut was to maintain their parent’s grave,” said Cooper. 

Through their efforts, the cemeteries have been transformed from what before looked like an abandoned forest to a historic cemetery site. Though the area has seen significant change, there is still much to be done. 

“It’s not a one and done deal. You cut it, it grows,” says Cooper. 

Yet, due to limited funds the cemeteries receive, the WAIA is not able to pay a company to regularly provide maintenance- not only to the graves sites themselves but also the grass, shrubbery, and overgrow that naturally occurs over time. Much of the responsibility for care has fallen to Cooper. 

“I can have the dollars, I need more hands to help operate the equipment”, said Cooper when asked how he manages to take care of the cemeteries with such limited resources. 

Alongside Willy Cooper, Sine Bone, WAIA public relations liaison and social media manager, has worked hard to give the cemeteries the recognition and care they deserve. Through their work together, they have started a GoFundMe that has allowed them to give nine unmarked graves permanent granite headstones.

“We do the GoFundMe to try to generate funds for headstones. After a while, they decay and go away, and then you don’t know who was buried there” said Sine Boe.

Many headstones have fallen into disrepair through years of neglect, and have caused the markings on them to go scattered through the cemetery, leaving them unmarked and forgotten.

One of the graves was the resting place of a previous St. Augustine Record columnist, Artemis Holloway Jones, whose sister was the founder of the West Augustine Improvement Society, Nelly Meade. 

“If we didn’t put that granite gravestone on Artemis she would have been lost. She was an important writer… she’s the reason we have the go fund me, and now we have the first 9 granite gravestones”, said Sine Boe. 

After it came out that a former writer’s gravestone was almost forgotten, writers from around the United States donated to the GoFundMe, which has allowed the WAIA to purchase their first ever new gravestones.

These granite gravestones were presented to the community and public at the New Headstone Reveal Ceremony at a fall cleanup on October 19th. 

Local residents are encouraged to participate in these seasonal cleanups one in the fall and one in the spring. residents can also donate to the go-fund me, sponsor a grave, donate your time, or become a member. For more information residents can email Sine Boe at: westaugustineimprovemment@gmail.com.