DIGGING FOR DIGNITY PROUDLY PRESENTS: An Underground Archive of Black Life in Tarrant County, 1889–2026.

DIGGING FOR DIGNITY PROUDLY PRESENTS: An Underground Archive of Black Life in Tarrant County, 1889–2026. Link: https://youtu.be/jtTr5A1elmg?is=SNEv8lTX9lOCeiQl

On National Slavery Remembrance Day, descendants of former slaves and former slave owners will gather at Historic People’s Memorial Burial Park in Haltom City to honor the past, confront the truth, and work together toward a better future.

By Digging for Dignity Legacy Project

There are places where history is displayed behind glass.

There are places where history is cataloged on shelves.

And then there are places where history is beneath your feet.

At North Beach Street and Northeast 28th Street in Haltom City lies one of the most extraordinary repositories of Black history in Tarrant County:

HISTORIC PEOPLE’S MEMORIAL BURIAL PARK.

Within this sacred landscape are Fretwell Cemetery, New Trinity Cemetery and People’s Burial Park—grounds believed to contain more than 8,000 Black pioneers, formerly enslaved people and their descendants.

Pastors.

Mothers.

Fathers.

Children.

Veterans.

Teachers.

Laborers.

Entrepreneurs.

Church builders.

Community leaders.

People born in slavery.

People born into freedom but forced to live beneath Jim Crow.

People who served a country that did not always serve them equally.

People whose names may never appear in a history textbook, yet whose lives helped build Tarrant County.

Taken together, they form something remarkable:

AN UNDERGROUND ARCHIVE OF BLACK LIFE IN TARRANT COUNTY.

And on Thursday, August 20, 2026, the past will meet the present on this ground in an unusually powerful way.

At noon, during the National Slavery Remembrance Day Prayer Service, we will gather at the foundation of historic New Trinity Methodist Church at the 1889 Fretwell Cemetery.

We will remember the enslaved.

We will honor their descendants.

We will tell the truth about slavery.

We will remember the generations who survived its aftermath.

And then we will do something that history once made almost unimaginable.

Descendants of former slaves and descendants of former slave owners will sit together.

Work together.

Pray together.

And look toward the future together.

We call it:

THE TABLE OF TOGETHERNESS.

At the center of that gathering will be Dr. Spencer M. Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recipients of the 2026 Digging for Dignity MLK Stones of Hope Award.

Their presence is not incidental to the story.

It is the story.

Because National Slavery Remembrance Day should not simply ask us what happened in the past.

It should ask what the living intend to do with that past now.

ONE PHYSICIAN, ONE HISTORY, ONE CHOICE

Dr. Spencer Smith has spent much of his professional life looking beneath the surface.

A board-certified diagnostic radiologist in Fort Worth and a longtime medical educator, Smith has built a career studying what cannot always be seen with the naked eye.

In recent years, however, another kind of examination became personal.

This one involved his own family.

Smith learned that his great-great-great-grandparents, James and Agnes Flake, were slaveholders and that one of the people they enslaved was Green Flake, the Black Mormon pioneer who traveled west in Brigham Young’s 1847 vanguard company.

There are many ways a person can respond to a discovery like that.

One is silence.

Another is defensiveness.

Another is to classify the matter as ancient history and move on.

Smith chose something else.

He chose to confront it.

And then he chose relationship.

Recently, Smith and his wife, Jennifer, traveled to Utah to visit the monument to Green Flake at This Is The Place Heritage Park and his grave at Union Pioneer Memorial Cemetery in Salt Lake City.

Smith later explained that the visit held special meaning because it coincided closely with the anniversary of Green Flake descendant Ed Udell and his wife, Sandra.

The relationship between Smith and Udell has moved beyond genealogy.

Smith has described Udell as a close brother.

That phrase may be more significant than any monument.

Because reconciliation rarely arrives as a grand national declaration.

Sometimes it begins when two descendants of very different histories decide that the past will not determine the limits of their relationship.

THE CHURCH AND THE WORK

Smith’s journey is also part of a broader story involving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its growing relationship with Black churches and the Digging for Dignity Legacy Project.

Members of the church have shown up.

They have served.

They have supported preservation efforts.

They have built relationships.

And that matters because reconciliation cannot be reduced to statements.

Eventually, somebody has to come to the ground.

Somebody has to pick up the tools.

Somebody has to listen.

Somebody has to help locate the graves.

Somebody has to learn the names.

Somebody has to accept responsibility for helping preserve a history that may not be their own history—but is nevertheless part of our shared American history.

Since the Digging for Dignity MLK Day of Service, Dr. Smith and I have worked alongside descendants and volunteers to help ensure that the people buried at Fretwell Cemetery and across People’s Memorial Burial Park are remembered.

We call part of that work “restoring the souls.”

Not because the dead need us to restore their souls to God.

But because the names, stories and human dignity of people can disappear from public memory when grave markers vanish and cemeteries are neglected.

We are locating graves.

Photographing markers.

Searching records.

Connecting descendants.

Recording stories.

Documenting veterans.

Recovering names.

And helping return people to the historical record.

We are not simply cleaning a cemetery.

WE ARE RECOVERING A CIVILIZATION.

THE SWIM

The story beneath this work begins long before any of us arrived.

It begins with Rev. Greene Fretwell.

Born into slavery, Greene is remembered in family history as a man who escaped bondage by swimming across the Ohio River toward freedom.

Picture him.

A man enters the river enslaved.

He moves toward the opposite shore carrying no deed.

No wealth.

No guarantee of protection.

No certainty about what awaited him.

Only the conviction that his life belonged to God and not another man.

He crossed the river for freedom.

Years later, Greene and his family made their way to Tarrant County.

Then he died in 1886.

And the freedom he had risked his life to obtain met another indignity.

Even burial was divided by race.

Greene needed a place to rest.

His widow, Frances Fretwell, refused to accept humiliation as the last chapter of his story.

THE PROMISE

Frances traveled through the Black community seeking contributions for land where families could bury their loved ones.

Tradition remembers her traveling by horseback.

And with those contributions came a promise:

Help us purchase the land, and your family will always have a place to bury your loved ones.

In 1889, trustees associated with Trinity Chapel Methodist Church purchased property for worship and burial.

Before there was a church building, the people worshiped beneath a brush arbor.

Before highways and businesses surrounded this ground, Black families were praying here.

Grieving here.

Burying here.

Building here.

A promise became property.

Property became sacred ground.

Sacred ground became a cemetery.

And the cemetery eventually became home to generations.

Greene Fretwell swam for freedom.

Frances Fretwell rode for dignity.

THE SWIM.

THE PROMISE.

THE PARK.

THE DIGNITY.

More than 8,000 souls later, the evidence of that promise is beneath our feet.

THE BAKER CENTURY

The story reaches another milestone in 2026 with the 100th anniversary of Historic Baker Funeral Home.

For generations, Black funeral homes were never simply businesses.

They were institutions of dignity.

They served Black families at moments when segregation and discrimination shaped nearly every aspect of life.

They became keepers of names.

Keepers of family histories.

Keepers of burial traditions.

Keepers of memory.

That is why the Baker family belongs prominently in this story.

Churches cared for souls.

Funeral homes cared for families.

Cemeteries cared for memory.

Together, those institutions formed an ecosystem of Black self-determination in Tarrant County.

At the Digging for Dignity Juneteenth Find-A-Grave Legacy Project on June 20, 2026, Dr. Smith and I joined descendants and community members in honoring the Fretwell and Baker families and their extraordinary legacy of service.

Juneteenth commemorates freedom.

At Fretwell Cemetery, we connected freedom to names.

To graves.

To families.

To institutions.

To the people who transformed emancipation into community.

THE PARK COMES ALIVE

Then came July.

With support from Haltom City officials, the historic burial park began taking on new life as a place not only of remembrance but of gathering.

During National Buffalo Soldiers Day, city officials, law enforcement, parks and recreation representatives, Tarrant County churches, the Ministers Justice Coalition of Texas, the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Buffalo Soldiers Program and descendants gathered at the park.

There was Theron’s barbecue.

There were Buffalo Soldiers exhibitions.

There was Negro Leagues baseball history.

There were testimonials.

There was storytelling.

And beneath what we now call the Togetherness Tree, descendants of people who once occupied very different places in the racial order of Texas found themselves gathered around the same tables.

It was not the erasure of history.

It was the honest use of history.

A burial ground became a gathering ground.

A place of death became a place where relationships were being born.

DR. KING’S TABLE

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial and spoke of a future in which the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners could sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

Those words are often quoted.

On August 20, we intend to practice them.

I am a descendant of people who were enslaved.

Dr. Spencer Smith is a descendant of people who enslaved others.

Neither of us chose the history behind us.

But both of us can choose the future before us.

That is why the Table of Togetherness matters.

It is not historical amnesia.

It is not a declaration that the past no longer matters.

It is exactly the opposite.

The table begins with truth.

Slavery happened.

Families were torn apart.

People were bought and sold.

Institutions benefited.

Generations carried the consequences.

That truth cannot be negotiated away.

But truth does not have to be the end of the conversation.

Truth can also become the beginning of responsibility.

Reconciliation asks:

Now that we know the truth, what will we build together?

FROM PAST TO PRESENT TO FUTURE

That may be the real meaning of National Slavery Remembrance Day at Fretwell Cemetery.

We are bringing three generations of time to the same ground.

The past is represented by Greene and Frances Fretwell, Green Flake, the formerly enslaved, the veterans, pioneers and thousands of Black families buried here.

The present is represented by descendants like Spencer Smith, Jennifer Smith, Ed Udell, Black churches, Latter-day Saints, volunteers, city officials, descendants and community partners choosing to confront history together.

And the future is represented by the relationships we build now.

That is the bridge.

Past.

Present.

Future.

We cannot change what happened behind us.

But we can decide what happens because we remembered it.

That is one of the central convictions of Digging for Dignity:

THE PAST SHOULD INFORM THE PRESENT WITHOUT IMPRISONING THE FUTURE.

STONES OF HOPE

That conviction is also why our award is called the MLK Stones of Hope Award.

Dr. King spoke of carving a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair.

At Fretwell Cemetery, the metaphor multiplies.

There is not one stone.

There are thousands.

Some bear names.

Some are weathered.

Some are broken.

Some have disappeared.

Some graves may never have had permanent markers.

But the absence of a marker does not erase the life.

Every grave represents someone who lived.

Someone who loved.

Someone who served.

Someone who worked.

Someone who prayed.

Someone who sacrificed.

Someone whose life belongs in the story of Tarrant County.

And so here, we speak not merely of a stone of hope.

We speak of:

STONES OF HOPE.

More than 8,000 souls.

More than 8,000 stories.

More than 8,000 reasons to remember.

WHY DR. SMITH AND THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS

The 2026 Digging for Dignity MLK Stones of Hope Award will honor Dr. Spencer M. Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because they have done something that deserves recognition:

They have entered the work.

They have supported the Black church community.

They have engaged difficult history.

They have built relationships across racial and religious lines.

They have demonstrated that reconciliation does not require us to share the same ancestry, theology or experiences.

It requires a willingness to show up.

To listen.

To serve.

To tell the truth.

And to stay at the table.

The award is not meant to declare the work finished.

Quite the opposite.

It recognizes people willing to begin.

AMERICA 250 AND THE STORY BENEATH OUR FEET

All of this is unfolding as the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary.

America 250 will generate celebrations across the nation.

But anniversaries are meaningful only when we tell the whole story.

America’s story is not complete without the enslaved.

Without emancipation.

Without Reconstruction.

Without Black churches.

Without Buffalo Soldiers.

Without Black schools.

Without Black businesses.

Without Black funeral homes.

Without Black cemeteries.

Without the mothers and fathers whose names rarely reached newspapers.

Without the laborers and farmers.

Without the teachers and ministers.

Without the men and women who served a country that often denied them full citizenship.

Without places like Historic People’s Memorial Burial Park.

This sacred ground forces us to expand the American narrative.

The history beneath our feet is not marginal history.

IT IS AMERICAN HISTORY.

EVERY STONE HAS A SONG

Spend enough time in an old cemetery and something changes.

At first, you see stones.

Then you begin seeing people.

A mother.

A veteran.

A minister.

A child.

A formerly enslaved man.

A widow on horseback.

A funeral director serving another grieving family.

A descendant looking for a grandfather.

A physician confronting his ancestors.

A church congregation showing up to serve another church community.

A Black pastor and a white descendant working side by side among graves that hold generations of people separated by laws they did not create.

Suddenly, the cemetery becomes a choir.

Every stone has a song.

Some songs are painful.

Some triumphant.

Some nearly forgotten.

But they are still singing.

Our job is to listen.

THE TABLE OF TOGETHERNESS

On Thursday, August 20, 2026, at noon, we will gather at the foundation of historic New Trinity Methodist Church at Fretwell Cemetery, within Historic People’s Memorial Burial Park at 2800 N. Beach Street at NE 28th Street in Haltom City.

There will be prayer.

Remembrance.

Truth telling.

Recognition.

And reconciliation.

The 2026 Digging for Dignity MLK Stones of Hope Award will be presented to Dr. Spencer M. Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But the greater award will be what happens around the table.

Descendants of former slaves.

Descendants of former slave owners.

Black churches.

Latter-day Saints.

Veterans.

City officials.

Descendants.

Neighbors.

People who do not share the same story but have decided to share responsibility for what comes next.

That is how the past becomes useful.

That is how memory becomes ministry.

That is how history becomes a bridge.

THE LEGACY

Greene Fretwell swam.

Frances Fretwell rode.

The church purchased the ground.

Black families kept burying their loved ones.

The Baker family served generations.

Veterans answered the call.

Families endured.

Descendants returned.

Volunteers picked up tools.

Names began rising.

Dr. Spencer Smith confronted his own family history.

Latter-day Saints joined Black Christians in service.

And beneath it all rested more than 8,000 Black pioneers—silent witnesses to what America was, what it became and what it might still become.

That is the story of Digging for Dignity.

Not merely digging into the past.

But digging deeply enough into the past to find something worth carrying into the future.

THE SWIM GAVE US FREEDOM.

THE PROMISE GAVE US DIGNITY.

THE PARK GAVE US MEMORY.

THE WORK GAVE US RESPONSIBILITY.

THE TABLE GIVES US TOGETHERNESS.

AND TOGETHERNESS GIVES US A FUTURE.

That is what August 20 is ultimately about.

Not staying trapped in 1619.

Not pretending 1619 never happened.

Not staying trapped in 1889.

Not forgetting what happened in 1889.

Not merely quoting Dr. King in 1963.

But taking everything the past has taught us and asking what kind of community we are willing to build in 2026 and beyond.

Past to present.

Present to future.

Memory to responsibility.

Truth to reconciliation.

Stone by stone.

Name by name.

Relationship by relationship.

STONES OF HOPE.

More Than 8,000 Souls.
More Than 8,000 Stories.
More Than 8,000 Stones of Hope.

One Sacred Landscape.

One Shared History.

One Table of Togetherness.

And one generation deciding that the future can be better than the past.

NATIONAL SLAVERY REMEMBRANCE DAY PRAYER SERVICE

Thursday, August 20, 2026 — 12 Noon

Foundation of Historic New Trinity Methodist Church
Historic Fretwell Cemetery
Historic People’s Memorial Burial Park
2800 N. Beach Street at NE 28th Street
Haltom City, Texas

PRESENTATION OF THE 2026 DIGGING FOR DIGNITY MLK STONES OF HOPE AWARD

Honoring Dr. Spencer M. Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

To become involved with the Digging for Dignity Legacy Project, contact Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr. at 817-966-7625.

Contributions may be made by Zelle to newmtrosembc@gmail.com or through New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church.

DIGGING FOR DIGNITY

Preserving the Ground.
Recovering the Names.
Telling the Stories.
Restoring the Dignity.
Building the Table.
Creating a Better Future.

Every Stone Has a Song.
Every Soul Has a Story.
Every Stone Is a Stone of Hope.
Every Soul Is Made of Pure Gold.

“But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
— Job 23:10