THE FORGOTTEN LEAVES AT NEW TRINITY CEMETERY.

THE FORGOTTEN LEAVES AT NEW TRINITY CEMETERY. 

Veterans Day Cover Story | By Black Texans,

Inc.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025 | 12 Noon

New Trinity Cemetery | Haltom City, Texas

Honoring the Enlisted and the Enslaved on Veterans Day 2025

TARRANT COUNTY, TEXAS — Tucked between the rumble of 28th and Beach Street and the tangled thickets of Haltom City lies a place where history sleeps—but not in peace. At New Trinity Cemetery, the winds whisper the names of the enslaved and the enlisted, calling for remembrance, restoration, and reverence.

This Veterans Day, those whispers will rise into a resounding call to action.

New Trinity Cemetery is more than a burial ground—it is a battlefield of memory. Here, faith and freedom took root despite bondage, bullets, and broken promises. It is sacred soil where formerly enslaved souls lie beside African American veterans who served in every major war since Emancipation. And now, a new generation is rising to tend their legacy.

Unearthing Honor from the Shadows

On Buffalo Soldiers Day, July 28, 2025, Pastor Kyev Tatum of Fort Worth—alongside a student from Skills City, USA—walked the grounds of New Trinity Cemetery in search of the grave of Technician Fifth Grade Florence Marie Cole Rawls, a WWII trailblazer and proud member of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

The 6888th, the only all-Black, all-female unit deployed overseas during World War II, defied both gender and racial barriers. In just three months, these women processed more than 17 million pieces of mail, ensuring critical correspondence between U.S. soldiers and their loved ones was signed, sealed, and delivered across the European Theater. Their precision, speed, and service restored morale on the front lines and made history—though it was long overlooked.

Florence Rawls was recently awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, posthumously honoring her and her battalion’s extraordinary contribution to the war effort. But as Pastor Tatum and the young scholar stood beside her quiet grave, one truth became clear: her story was not alone. She rests among hundreds whose legacies remain untold.

A Cemetery Conceived in Determination and Dignity

New Trinity Cemetery itself was born of resistance. In 1886, when Reverend Greene Fretwell, a formerly enslaved pastor, passed away, no cemetery in Tarrant County would accept his burial. But his widow, Frances Fretwell, refused to surrender to segregation. She helped raise the funds, and in 1889, two acres were secured by the trustees of Trinity Chapel Methodist Church. A brush arbor rose into a wooden sanctuary. The cemetery eventually expanded to include People’s Burial Park, becoming a final refuge for generations of Black Texans.

Yet today, many names lie unmarked. Many lives rest undocumented. Their sacred contributions risk being erased—unless we remember.

Among the Forgotten: Dr. Ransom’s Sacred Return

Among the most powerful rediscoveries is Dr. Riley Andrew Ransom Sr., a pioneering physician and founder of Fort Worth’s first hospital for African Americans. A graduate of Meharry Medical College, trained at the Mayo Clinic, and valedictorian of his class, Dr. Ransom established the Booker T. Washington Sanitarium, later renamed Ethel Ransom Memorial Hospital.

With 20 beds, a surgical wing, laboratory, and nursing school, it was a beacon of Black medical brilliance in the Jim Crow South. But even Dr. Ransom’s grave had fallen into obscurity—until the youth-led initiative Tending the Forgotten Leaves brought his name, and legacy, back into the light.

Veterans Day 2025: A Sacred Restoration

This Veterans Day, under the leadership of New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association, and the Ministers Justice Coalition of Texas, youth ministries—Young Buffalo Soldiers and Little Miss Six Triple Eight—will officially adopt New Trinity Cemetery as a long-term restoration and remembrance project.

Their mission is threefold:

• Research: Discover and document the lives laid to rest.

• Restore: Clean, preserve, and dignify the sacred grounds.

• Reclaim: Share the stories erased by racism, weather, and time.

This is not merely a youth mission. It is a community calling.

Why We Tend the Leaves

Because the leaves that fall on these forgotten graves are not just mulch.

They are memory.

They are witness.

They are warning.

They remind us of:

• Soldiers who served under a flag that did not serve them.

• Physicians who healed in segregated spaces.

• Preachers who buried hope and resurrected it every Sunday.

• Enslaved men and women whose dreams stretched beyond freedom.

We tend the leaves because to forget is to forsake—and to remember is to restore.

 Join the Mission: Tending the Forgotten Leaves

Veterans Day Service of Remembrance

Tuesday, November 11, 2025 | 12 Noon

New Trinity Cemetery

4001 NE 28th Street | Haltom City, TX 76117

Contact: Pastor Kyev Tatum – 817-966-7625

Email: kptatum1@gmail.com

Website: newmountrose.com

Donate via Zelle: newmtrosembc@gmail.com

This Veterans Day: Rise in Sacred Service

Let us not merely raise flags—

Let us raise names.

Let us not only lay wreaths—

Let us lay truth.

Let us not simply salute the living—

Let us tend the forgotten.

Because the battle for dignity does not end in death—

It ends in remembrance.

Presented by Black Texans, Inc.

Restoring Dignity. Reclaiming Legacy. One Leaf at a Time.