A community in Jacksonville is uncovering a hidden past in a northside cemetery.

Beneath the Emmett Reed Community Center, a park frequented by locals, lies the site of Mount Herman Cemetery, a historic burial ground dating back to the 1880s.

Once the final resting place for hundreds of Black men, women and children, the cemetery’s existence has been largely erased, its graves paved over during city development in the 1950s.

Ennis Davis, a sixth-generation Jacksonville native, is leading efforts to restore Mount Herman’s history.

Many graves remain undisturbed beneath the park, Davis said, and it’s unclear whether any bodies were moved. A lone concrete headstone stands as a testament to those buried. Its durability highlights the disparity in care once afforded to these burial sites.

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Neglect of Black cemeteries

Further evidence of Jacksonville’s forgotten cemeteries can be found nearby in a grave marker embedded inconspicuously in a sidewalk. Such sites, City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman noted, reflect systemic neglect of Black cemeteries.

The Black Cemetery Network has identified 182 erased sites across the United States.

“The community don’t care,” Pittman said. “But I think they may not care because they may not know how sacred that it. When we know better, we do better.”