DIGGING FOR DIGNITY: Healing Hands from Heaven Buried at People’s Burial Park. By Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.,

 

DIGGING FOR DIGNITY: Healing Hands from Heaven Buried at People’s Burial Park. By Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.,

In the history of Fort Worth, Texas, there are stories buried beneath the soil that deserve to rise again.

At People’s Burial Park rest two of the most important African-American physicians in the history of North Texas — Dr. Riley Ransom and Dr. George Murry Munchus.

That alone is extraordinary.

Not one pioneering Black physician.

But two.

Two sons of formerly enslaved families.

Two men who rose from segregation, racism, and systemic injustice to become healers for a community too often denied medical care.

Two men who helped build Black medicine in Fort Worth when many hospitals either refused to treat African-Americans or forced them into segregated basements.

And today, both men are buried in the same sacred ground at People’s Burial Park.

What a testimony.

What a history.

What a responsibility.

Dr. George Murry Munchus, born August 6, 1887, was the son of former slaves Murry and Lou Munchus, who journeyed from Alabama to Texas shortly after emancipation by horse and wagon. From those humble beginnings rose a brilliant physician educated at Meharry Medical College — one of the premier Black medical schools in America.

After opening a successful medical practice in Clarksville, Texas, Dr. Munchus built the county’s first Black hospital. But hatred struck violently. In 1921, the hospital was destroyed in a fire Dr. Munchus believed was set by the Ku Klux Klan.

Yet he did not quit.

He moved to Fort Worth.

He rebuilt.

He established the Negro Community Hospital and became the first Black physician on staff at Pennsylvania Avenue Hospital.

He made house calls across North Texas.

He treated people others ignored.

He became a symbol of Black excellence, resilience, and dignity.

Then there was Dr. Riley Ransom Sr.

Long before modern healthcare systems existed for African-Americans in Fort Worth, Dr. Ransom opened the Ethel Ransom Memorial Hospital in 1914 — the first African-American hospital in Fort Worth.

Patients came at every hour.

Broken bones.

Childbirth.

Tuberculosis.

Emergency surgeries.

People came because Black families had few other places to go.

Dr. Ransom did not merely practice medicine.

He built hope.

His hospital became one of only three Black hospitals in America accredited by the American Medical Association in 1940.

That achievement alone should place his name among the giants of Texas medical history.

He performed more than 50,000 operations during his career.

He treated the poor.

He accepted eggs and vegetables when families could not afford cash.

He refused to turn people away.

And through it all, these men practiced medicine while facing segregation, exclusion from white hospitals, and barriers created by law and racism.

Yet they endured.

They overcame.

They healed.

Today, many drive past People’s Burial Park without realizing that beneath its soil lie two giants who helped save Black lives in Fort Worth during one of the darkest periods in American healthcare history.

This is why Digging for Dignity matters.

Because cemeteries are not just places of death.

They are classrooms of memory.

Museums beneath the grass.

Sacred archives of sacrifice.

Every headstone tells a story.

Every name represents a legacy.

Every restoration project becomes an act of justice.

As volunteers gather at People’s Burial Park through the Digging for Dignity movement led by New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, the Ministers Justice Coalition of Texas, veterans groups, historians, churches, and community partners, they are doing more than cleaning a cemetery.

They are reclaiming history.

They are restoring honor.

They are proclaiming that the lives of these Black pioneers mattered.

Dr. Riley Ransom mattered.

Dr. George Murry Munchus mattered.

And the generations they healed matter still.

Because if it had not been for Black doctors like Ransom and Munchus, countless African-American families across Fort Worth and North Texas might never have survived.

Their healing hands helped carry a people through segregation, suffering, and survival.

And now, through Digging for Dignity, Fort Worth has an opportunity to carry their legacy forward.

“Our History. Our Heroes. Our Heritage.”