Black Baptists Discover Lost Cemetery in Virginia

February 8, 2022

They needed a John Deere Gator to reach the perimeter. Then, in the forested area behind a power plant in Williamsburg, Virginia, Colette Roots and her small expedition had to jump over ditches full of rainwater, where they could see tadpoles and mosquito eggs. They went in.

The plot of land belonged to a Black congregation in the 1940s. The historic church, Oak Grove Baptist, is still active. Roots grew up in the congregation, and as a child, she helped her mother maintain the graves at the church’s main cemetery—a much larger plot roughly a mile from this one, with about 150 graves.

The church lost access to this smaller graveyard decades ago, thanks in part to a massive land seizure by the federal government. By the summer of 2021, most everyone who knew the exact whereabouts of the Christians buried back here had died themselves.

Source: Black Baptists Discover Lost Cemetery in Virginia