Digging for Dignity: New Law and Juneteenth Project Unite to Protect Historic Black Cemetery on June 20, 2026 at 9am.

Digging for Dignity: New Law and Juneteenth Project Unite to Protect Historic Black Cemetery on June 20, 2026 at 9am. 

By Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.

HALTOM CITY — Sometimes history waits patiently for someone to come looking for it.

For nearly 140 years, the sacred grounds of Historic Fretwell Cemetery–New Trinity Cemetery at the People’s Memorial Burial Park have quietly preserved one of the most important African-American stories in North Texas.

Beneath its soil rest more than 7,700 Black pioneers.

Formerly enslaved men and women.

Teachers.

Pastors.

Business owners.

Homemakers.

Military veterans.

Community builders.

Freedom dreamers.

And more than 500 Black veterans who answered their nation’s call, often long before their nation fully recognized their worth.

Many of their names have never appeared in textbooks.

Many of their stories have never been fully told.

Many of their graves have never been digitally documented.

That is why June 20, 2026, may become one of the most significant days in the history of this sacred place.

On Juneteenth weekend, hundreds of volunteers will gather at Historic Fretwell Cemetery–New Trinity Cemetery for the Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project, a community-wide effort to photograph, geo-locate, document, and digitally preserve thousands of graves for future generations.

What makes this effort especially significant is that it arrives at the same moment Texas is creating a new tool to help protect historic African-American burial grounds.

The Historic Texas Freedmen’s Cemetery Designation Act, administered by the Texas Historical Commission, establishes a statewide program to identify and officially recognize cemeteries containing the graves of formerly enslaved African Americans.

Taken separately, each initiative is important.

Together, they may represent one of the most powerful preservation opportunities for African-American history in Texas.

The Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project helps identify and document the graves.

The Historic Texas Freedmen’s Cemetery Designation Act helps protect and recognize the cemetery itself.

One creates a permanent digital record.

The other creates official historical recognition.

Together they help preserve, promote, and protect places like Historic Fretwell Cemetery–New Trinity Cemetery.

The legislation recognizes a painful truth.

For generations, Black cemeteries have too often been overlooked, neglected, hidden by development, or omitted from public records altogether.

Across Texas, historic burial grounds have disappeared beneath highways, parking lots, subdivisions, and commercial developments.

Entire chapters of community history have been erased.

The new law seeks to prevent that from happening again.

Under the designation program, churches, descendants, historians, preservation groups, and community organizations may apply to have qualifying cemeteries officially recognized as Freedmen cemeteries.

The designation alerts landowners, developers, public officials, and future generations that these sacred grounds exist and deserve respect.

For Historic Fretwell Cemetery–New Trinity Cemetery, the timing could not be more important.

The cemetery represents a living archive of Black history in North Texas.

Its graves tell the story of Emancipation.

The story of Reconstruction.

The story of faith.

The story of military service.

The story of entrepreneurship.

The story of family.

The story of survival.

Among those buried there is Florence Marie Cole Rawls, a member of the legendary 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black, all-female battalion deployed overseas during World War II.

In 2025, the women of the Six Triple Eight received the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors.

Rawls rests among thousands of others whose contributions helped shape Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas, and America.

Yet the cemetery is about far more than notable names.

Its true significance lies in the collective story of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things.

People who built churches.

Opened businesses.

Raised families.

Created neighborhoods.

Established schools.

Served in uniform.

And laid foundations that still support our communities today.

The Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project seeks to ensure that these stories do not disappear with time.

Volunteers will walk section by section through the cemetery, photographing markers, recording locations, and uploading information into the Find-A-Grave database.

Children will learn history while standing directly above it.

Families will reconnect with ancestors.

Veterans will honor veterans.

Historians will preserve stories.

Neighbors will become stewards of memory.

The effort is being coordinated through a partnership involving the City of Haltom City, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association, the Ministers Justice Coalition of Texas, and numerous community volunteers.

At the center of the cemetery stands an old pecan tree known as the Togetherness Tree.

Its branches stretch across generations, races, denominations, and backgrounds.

In many ways, it has become the perfect symbol for what is taking place.

People are coming together to preserve something larger than themselves.

This is not simply a cemetery project.

It is a public history project.

It is a family history project.

It is a community healing project.

It is a sacred responsibility.

As America approaches its 250th anniversary, we have an opportunity to ensure that the stories of those who helped build this nation are not forgotten.

The Historic Texas Freedmen’s Cemetery Designation Act provides the recognition.

The Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project provides the documentation.

Together they provide hope that future generations will know the names, honor the sacrifices, and remember the legacies of those who came before them.

Because these pioneers mattered.

Their lives mattered.

Their stories matter.

And their resting places deserve to be remembered forever.

For they were buried in silence.

But we will raise their names in sacred honor.

— Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr. is Senior Pastor of New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church, President of the Ministers Justice Coalition of Texas, Chaplain of the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association, and Cemetery Commemoration Curator for Historic Fretwell Cemetery–New Trinity Cemetery at the People’s Memorial Burial Park.