Volunteers unearth history buried by weather's long-term effects
By
Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Oct 6, 2021 9:39 AM EST
Lebanon Cemetery is the final resting place for an estimated 3,500 Black Americans, including operators of the Underground Railroad.
Legends are buried at Lebanon Cemetery, and one group of volunteers is fighting to keep their names above the ground.
Veterans from America's wars, operators of the Underground Railroad and suffragettes all have found their final resting place at the cemetery in York County, Pennsylvania.
"We have folks here from all walks of life, and the common denominator is the color of their skin," Samantha Dorm, a volunteer at Friends of Lebanon Cemetery (FOLC), told AccuWeather National Reporter Sarah Gisriel. Founded in 2020, FOLC consists of volunteers who are dedicated to helping with the upkeep of the cemetery that holds the graves of 3,500 Black Americans as well as researching, identifying and documenting those who are buried there.
Among those remembered is James L. Smallwood, who had opened the first school for African American children in York, Pennsylvania, by 1871, according to the Falvey Memorial Library of Villanova University. Smallwood graduated from Villanova, which is just outside Philadelphia, in the class of 1864. A historic marker for the schoolhouse notes it as "part of a movement to create schools for the education of Black students by Black teachers, and is representative of the national struggle for equal education, regardless of race."
Samantha Dorm, a volunteer at Friends of Lebanon Cemetery tells AccuWeather National Reporter Sarah Gisriel about the group's efforts to take care of the cemetery. (AccuWeather / Sarah Gisriel)
Smallwood's grave is one of the many that FOLC cleans and tends to in order to preserve and protect them from becoming faceless names and dates. Many historic Black cemeteries such as Lebanon Cemetery face a disproportionate risk of being lost as both the climate crisis and city development intensify, The Guardian reported.
"If you consider the vulnerable populations that are greatly impacted by [climate] disasters, you can safely assume that their cultural resources are [also at] risk of being destroyed, displaced, damaged," Jennifer Blanks, a cemetery preservationist who catalogs historic Black cemeteries and burial sites, told The Guardian.
Ida was the latest disaster to show just how devastating weather can be to the graves of those long gone, only a year after Hurricane Laura and Delta damaged more than 2,000 graves across Louisiana, with at least 170 caskets having been displaced.
Lebanon Cemetery doesn't sit on the Gulf Coast, but it does occupy a flood plain.
Graves upended at a cemetery are shown in Cameron Parish, La., on Sunday, May 23, 2021. Storm surge from Hurricane Laura on Aug. 27, 2020, damaged cemeteries in the coastal region. (AP Photo/Rebecca Santana)
"We're situated on a hill where there's kind of no barrier, and certainly people aren't thinking about storms of the century," Dorm said. She added that there was once a situation in which, immediately after a burial had been completed, intense rain caused one of the coffins to surface. The rain has also contributed to hundreds of flat stone grave markers sinking anywhere from between 6 inches and a foot below ground.
With human-caused climate change enhancing heavy downpours and heightening flood risks, volunteers have installed drainage systems underneath the flat markers in an attempt to keep them from sinking.
Images of a few of those laid to rest at Lebanon Cemetery. (AccuWeather / Sarah Gisriel)
"We'll see how they do through the winter months, and if that's a good strategy, then next spring we'll come out and we'll attack over 600 flat markers to do the same thing," Dorm said.
While there's still much work to be done, their efforts have already made a difference. Dorm told Gisriel that after flooding caused some markers to sink, in addition to the vegetation not being landscaped regularly, some families hadn't been able to find markers for decades.
"We've been able to connect family members that haven't been able to come and pay respects to their family for many years, in some cases 30 years, that they haven't been able to find their marker," Dorm said.
Reporting by Sarah Gisriel.
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News / Climate
Volunteers unearth history buried by weather's long-term effects
By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Updated Oct 6, 2021 9:39 AM EST
Lebanon Cemetery is the final resting place for an estimated 3,500 Black Americans, including operators of the Underground Railroad.
Legends are buried at Lebanon Cemetery, and one group of volunteers is fighting to keep their names above the ground.
Veterans from America's wars, operators of the Underground Railroad and suffragettes all have found their final resting place at the cemetery in York County, Pennsylvania.
"We have folks here from all walks of life, and the common denominator is the color of their skin," Samantha Dorm, a volunteer at Friends of Lebanon Cemetery (FOLC), told AccuWeather National Reporter Sarah Gisriel. Founded in 2020, FOLC consists of volunteers who are dedicated to helping with the upkeep of the cemetery that holds the graves of 3,500 Black Americans as well as researching, identifying and documenting those who are buried there.
Among those remembered is James L. Smallwood, who had opened the first school for African American children in York, Pennsylvania, by 1871, according to the Falvey Memorial Library of Villanova University. Smallwood graduated from Villanova, which is just outside Philadelphia, in the class of 1864. A historic marker for the schoolhouse notes it as "part of a movement to create schools for the education of Black students by Black teachers, and is representative of the national struggle for equal education, regardless of race."
Samantha Dorm, a volunteer at Friends of Lebanon Cemetery tells AccuWeather National Reporter Sarah Gisriel about the group's efforts to take care of the cemetery. (AccuWeather / Sarah Gisriel)
Smallwood's grave is one of the many that FOLC cleans and tends to in order to preserve and protect them from becoming faceless names and dates. Many historic Black cemeteries such as Lebanon Cemetery face a disproportionate risk of being lost as both the climate crisis and city development intensify, The Guardian reported.
"If you consider the vulnerable populations that are greatly impacted by [climate] disasters, you can safely assume that their cultural resources are [also at] risk of being destroyed, displaced, damaged," Jennifer Blanks, a cemetery preservationist who catalogs historic Black cemeteries and burial sites, told The Guardian.
Ida was the latest disaster to show just how devastating weather can be to the graves of those long gone, only a year after Hurricane Laura and Delta damaged more than 2,000 graves across Louisiana, with at least 170 caskets having been displaced.
Lebanon Cemetery doesn't sit on the Gulf Coast, but it does occupy a flood plain.
Graves upended at a cemetery are shown in Cameron Parish, La., on Sunday, May 23, 2021. Storm surge from Hurricane Laura on Aug. 27, 2020, damaged cemeteries in the coastal region. (AP Photo/Rebecca Santana)
"We're situated on a hill where there's kind of no barrier, and certainly people aren't thinking about storms of the century," Dorm said. She added that there was once a situation in which, immediately after a burial had been completed, intense rain caused one of the coffins to surface. The rain has also contributed to hundreds of flat stone grave markers sinking anywhere from between 6 inches and a foot below ground.
With human-caused climate change enhancing heavy downpours and heightening flood risks, volunteers have installed drainage systems underneath the flat markers in an attempt to keep them from sinking.
Images of a few of those laid to rest at Lebanon Cemetery. (AccuWeather / Sarah Gisriel)
"We'll see how they do through the winter months, and if that's a good strategy, then next spring we'll come out and we'll attack over 600 flat markers to do the same thing," Dorm said.
While there's still much work to be done, their efforts have already made a difference. Dorm told Gisriel that after flooding caused some markers to sink, in addition to the vegetation not being landscaped regularly, some families hadn't been able to find markers for decades.
"We've been able to connect family members that haven't been able to come and pay respects to their family for many years, in some cases 30 years, that they haven't been able to find their marker," Dorm said.
Reporting by Sarah Gisriel.
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For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.
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