its a disgrace how this cemetery has been left and abandoned not even a name for it. All because back in the day African Americans where not allowed to be buried with whites what a disgrace .Same discrimination Jews meet when it came time to be buried.Of course it does not surprise me my great maternal grandfather is buried at union cemetery along cemetery lane but my great maternal grand mother is buried at Catholic cemetery up the road because my great grandfather was not catholic he was not allowed to be buried with her. The African American cemetery at present is very difficult to get to due to construction going on to expand the masonic lodge above it but the developers have promised to protect the cemetery during the expansion.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njm1/09African-AmericanMilitaryCem.html
There is no excuse why this and several other small cemetery have been let go around the western pa area but it has happened and racism which allowed the segregation is alive and thriving as well as always in area with Pittsburgh being known by blacks as Pittsburgh Mississippi The most southern northern city and its the truth hate crimes are always in the news in this area.
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| Whats left of the African American cemetery |
To make matters worse all over Pa in fact the entire US not only are there abandoned and forgotten African American cemetery but there are cemetery full of just stones with numbers for those who where paupers whose bodies where never claimed by relatives. and even worse all the cemetery across Pa and US which have interred thousands of the mentally ill with nothing but a number stone for a grave and like the one at the old Dixmont hospital site it has completely gone back to seed and been lost to history.
