The Digging for Dignity Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project Seeks Collaboration with the Texas Freedom Colonies Project to Launch a Statewide Pilgrimage to Record Freedmen Cemeteries.

 

This is the richest place. It has all of our histories.”

— Pastor Kyev Tatum, Curator, The Digging for Dignity Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project | CBS News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilUnXZTwCww

The Digging for Dignity Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project Seeks Collaboration with the Texas Freedom Colonies Project to Launch a Statewide Pilgrimage to Record Freedmen Cemeteries. |

Across Texas, Thousands of Black Stories Lie Beneath the Ground. A Fort Worth Pastor Wants the State to Find Them.

FORT WORTH — Pastor Kyev Tatum has spent years walking among weathered headstones, unmarked graves and forgotten burial grounds, convinced that some of Texas’ greatest historical treasures are hidden in plain sight.

Standing beneath the shade of the historic Togetherness Tree at the People’s Memorial Burial Park in Haltom City, Tatum often repeats the words that have become the guiding principle of the Digging for Dignity Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project.

“This is the richest place. It has all of our histories.”

Now, Tatum hopes that vision will extend far beyond North Texas.

The Digging for Dignity Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project is proposing a statewide partnership with the Texas Freedom Colonies Project to create an annual pilgrimage dedicated to documenting and preserving Texas’ historic Freedmen cemeteries—many of which remain endangered, unmarked, or largely unknown to the public (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtTr5A1elmg).

Founded by Dr. Andrea Roberts in 2014, the Texas Freedom Colonies Project has become one of the nation’s leading efforts to document the more than 550 Black settlements established across Texas following emancipation. The initiative combines historical research, mapping, oral histories, and community partnerships to preserve places that might otherwise disappear. (The Texas Freedom Colonies Project⁠)

For Tatum, the next step is obvious.

“If we know where the churches were, we should know where the cemeteries are,” he said. “Every cemetery is a library. Every headstone is a page. Every grave tells the story of someone who helped build Texas.”

The proposal envisions churches, universities, historical societies, genealogists, veterans organizations, students, descendants and volunteers joining together to photograph headstones, identify unmarked graves, record GPS locations, collect family stories and upload historical information into publicly accessible databases (https://fortworthreport.org/2026/06/22/digging-for-dignity-helps-restore-names-at-historic-cemetery/(.

The effort would mirror the work already underway through Digging for Dignity at People’s Memorial Burial Park, where volunteers have documented thousands of graves while uncovering the stories of educators, veterans, ministers, entrepreneurs, civic leaders and ordinary families whose contributions have often gone unrecognized.

The idea reflects a growing movement across Texas to preserve Black burial grounds before development, neglect and the passage of time erase them forever. Researchers estimate that formerly enslaved Texans established hundreds of Freedom Colonies after emancipation, many centered around churches, schools and cemeteries that remain among the state’s most significant African American historic landscapes. (ResearchGate⁠)

Tatum believes documenting those cemeteries is more than a historical exercise.

“It is an act of remembrance,” he said. “It is an act of justice. And it is an act of love.”

The proposed annual pilgrimage would encourage Texans to visit historic Freedmen cemeteries across the state—not simply to observe them, but to help preserve them.

Participants would photograph monuments, map grave locations, identify military veterans, record family histories, assist descendants searching for loved ones and work alongside local communities to support long-term preservation.

Supporters say such an initiative could also inspire younger generations to connect with Texas history in a deeply personal way.

“Cemeteries remind us that history is not just found in books,” Tatum said. “It lives in families. It lives in communities. And sometimes, it waits quietly beneath our feet until someone is willing to remember.”

For Tatum, the vision reaches beyond one cemetery or one city.

He imagines an annual statewide pilgrimage stretching from East Texas to the Panhandle, from the Gulf Coast to the Rio Grande Valley, uniting communities around a shared commitment to preserve the resting places of those who transformed freedom into flourishing communities.

“These places are among the richest historical archives in Texas,” he said. “When we preserve our cemeteries, we preserve our humanity.”

The organizers hope conversations with preservation leaders, descendant communities, churches, universities and the Texas Freedom Colonies Project will lead to a collaborative effort that ensures the stories resting in Texas’ historic Black cemeteries remain part of the state’s future as well as its past (https://www.thetexasfreedomcoloniesproject.com/).