http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20100123/NEWS01/1230329

Relics of pioneer past pop up in odd places

By John Andrew Prime
jprime@...

Urban archaeologists trying to improve Shreveport's Red River vantage have stumbled upon interesting traces of the city's past.

Last fall, members of a Better Shreveport, which hopes to create walks and historic pathways through greenways, walked through a heavily wooded area west of the Clyde Fant Memorial Parkway and literally stumbled on crypts and masses of moldering and broken tombstones. The stone sentinels are scattered along gullies in a hilly area historically part of Coates Bluff.

"It's all the way up the hill and down the other side," Jameel Damlouji, president of the Northwes Louisiana Archaeological Society, said after a recent strenuous trek through the site. He is president of the local business Supply America and coordinates with A Better Shreveport. "We're walking through depression after depression after depression, each likely a grave. They're everywhere."

The cemetery fills the woods nestled between E.B. Williams Stoner Hill Elementary Lab School and Caddo Parish Magnet High School.

"It is part of a larger complex of an older settlement, even older than Shreveport," said Gary Joiner, a cartographer and historian who is familiar with the property. "That cemetery sits on top of a bank that goes down to an old steamboat landing. My guess is that in addition to the graves that are marked, there are likely slave graves there that are unmarked."

According to records at the Caddo Assessor's Office, the tract belongs to Caddo Parish Schools and has been called Calvary Cemetery No. 2 and Hopewell Cemetery. City directories from 1925 through the 1950s list the cemetery and its known burials date from 1898 to 1959.

A history published by the Ark-La-Tex Genealogical Association says the cemetery began as a one-acre purchase by the Hopewell Baptist Church, then expanded over the years to more than two acres split into three sections. It was part of a 23-acre tract purchased by Caddo schools in 1949.

Caddo schools Superintendent Gerald Dawkins, who said he's relatively new to the area and isn't personally familiar with the Hopewell Cemetery, said the system started an inventory on its properties in December and hopes to have it ready by the summer.

"We plan to assess everything, whether it's empty land or vacant buildings, and certainly the occupied buildings," he said.

As a known cemetery that shows on maps and has known burials, the Hopewell Cemetery is protected by statute, but Dawkins said he knows of no plans for the site.

"We have property, and empty buildings, across the parish," he said. "That's the reason we are assessing and hope to get a handle on what we own, to make sure when we have plans we can consider all the variables."

Jessie Lafitte, now 73, lives just feet from the north side of the cemetery, where a tombstone propped against a tree is visible to students at Caddo Magnet High, visitors to Valencia Park and people driving by.

She's lived in the Stoner Hill neighborhood all her life and recalls burials there "from when I was a little girl." She also recalls burials happening there as late as the 1950s.

While Hopewell Cemetery may be the largest and best-hidden old cemetery, it is not alone. An old graveyard called the Pickens Cemetery occupies a parcel about the size of a large garage just yards from an unrelated church and a senior citizens complex in the 7400 block of St. Vincent Avenue, in the shadow of I-49. Another small cemetery sits astride the parking lot of the Military Entrance Processing Center on Mansfield Road.

Other cemeteries are abandoned, with all the graves that can be located moved to new locations. Fairfield Cemetery once occupied a corner of the intersection of Linwood and Hollywood avenues. It was sold to make way for a gas station and its graves were moved to the Carver Cemetery.

"Supposedly there was once one on Fairfield at Dashiel, and one at Fairfield and Boulevard Street, a vacant lot now," social historian and author Eric J. Brock said. "Nothing was ever built there and this may explain why, but I don't know for sure. And there was one on Fairfield near Jordan someplace, the graves of which were supposedly moved to Greenwood in the 1890s or so when Jordan was extended."

Brock said the Teacle Cemetery in south Shreveport was moved in the early 1980s to make way for the Inner Loop.

"It was located near where the Loop crosses Kingston Road today and the graves were moved to Forest Park. The Jordan Cemetery on Kings Highway where Bell Street once crossed was moved in the 1950s and the Walpole family burial ground at Monrovia and Thornhill was moved early in the 20th century. The Arnett Cemetery was located someplace in the vicinity of Elizabeth Street and Margaret Place but it disappeared during the development of that area in the late 19th century."

Numerous others were scattered around town "in what had once been rural areas vanished as the city grew and their locations became urbanized. We know of some graves moved to Greenwood, others to Forest Park and others elsewhere, but the whereabouts of the graves from the great majority of the known burial grounds and private cemeteries which once existed in and around Shreveport are unknown today altogether."

Joiner said these lost cemeteries "often are small and the families of the people buried in them are usually long gone, so they are not maintained. There might have been a church, and now the church is gone."

That happened with the Stonewall Baptist Church in Bossier City. The original cemetery was moved when Barksdale Air Force Base was created, and now its cemetery lies virtually overgrown in south Bossier Parish.

"Timber companies buy tracts and plant trees, and that's it," Joiner said. "There's quite a few cemeteries in the Kisatchie National Forest. There's probably some in the East Reservation of Barksdale. It's a common problem, not just here but all over the place. The best thing is to do our level best to protect the graves and honor the people who are there."

Joiner's advice to the Caddo School Board is to give the cemetery to another government entity, Shreveport Public Assembly and Recreation.

"That would protect it," he said. "Deeding it to SPAR would be a fine idea. SPAR is very good about protecting things. They're probably the best public stewards in this region."

3 families say New Orleans cemetery supervisor shook them down for gravedigging fees

Published: Sunday, August 22, 2010, 11:00 PM     Updated: Monday, August 23, 2010, 8:45 AM

The Times-Picayune

By Aimee Miles, staff writer

Nelson family photoMembers of the Nelson family ended up taking matters -- such as digging their mother's grave -- into their own hands after their experience with a supervisor with the city's cemeteries department.

New evidence has surfaced implicating a city employee with mishandling payments and improperly hiring at least one man, purporting to be her grandson, to dig graves in three publicly owned burial grounds.

Three weeks ago, eastern New Orleans resident Nanette Nelson contacted the city's Division of Cemeteries to arrange a burial for her mother-in-law in the family plot in Holt Cemetery. When city employee Ava Gardner told Nelson to bring $350 the day of the service to hire a gravedigger that ultimately didn't show up, Nelson reported it to higher-ups and discovered that Gardner had violated city law.

Since then, other families have spoken out with similar tales of Gardner's actions -- each involving an ill-prepared or absentee gravedigger that Gardner hired and asked families to pay for.

According to a the city's municipal code, city employees cannot be involved in contracting or brokering gravedigging services, as Gardner is accused of doing. The new testimonies suggest that Gardner, who has served as Interim superintendent of cemeteries since shortly after Hurricane Katrina, may have been a habitual offender.

Horrified family pelted by pieces of tomb

The most recent incident that surfaced involved the Dumestre family, who planned to hold a small service for their mother in Lafayette Cemetery No. 2 on May 7. Officials with the city's Department of Property Management directed them to Gardner, who told the Dumestres to bring $350 in cash to pay the gravedigger for opening the family tomb on the day of interment.

Times-Picayune archiveHolt Cemetery, also run by the city of New Orleans, has many neglected graves post-Katrina.

Jeanne Dumestre said she arrived at Lafayette No. 2 shortly before her mother's service and located the cemetery supervisor, accompanied by a man she took to be the gravedigger. When she asked the pair if they had opened the tomb in preparation for the service, they replied that they had just begun looking for it.

What followed was a series of mishaps that, in Dumestre's words, "virtually ruined" the family service. Dumestre guided the supervisor and gravedigger to the tomb, where they tried unsuccessfully to pry open the marble front by hand.

Seeing that the gravedigger didn't have any tools with him, the family removed the frontispiece themselves, only to discover a brick wall behind it that obstructed the opening of the tomb. It was at that point, Dumestre said, that the gravedigger produced a mallet and proceeded, rather unceremoniously, to smash a hole in the wall, freeing a barrage of pulverized mortar and brick that pelted family members who looked on in horror.

Dumestre said she handed the gravedigger $200 after the service, refusing to pay the full fee on account of his behavior.
"He said, oh, no, that's for my grandma," Dumestre recalled. "He seemed uncomfortable about taking the cash, which I thought was weird because (Gardner) told us to give money to the gravedigger."

As Dumestre was walking away, the gravedigger, whose name Dumestre didn't know, phoned his grandmother. The grandmother asked to speak to Dumestre and demanded that she pay the full $350 fee, but did not reveal her identity over the phone.

Dumestre said she didn't put two and two together at the time, but she now believes that the woman on the phone was Alma Gardner, and that Gardner had hired out her own grandson for the job.

A similar experience

Dumestre's experience with Gardner bears remarkable similarities not only to Nelson's account, but to that of Nick Weber, who also says Gardner tried to scam his family.

Weber recalled meeting with Gardner shortly after his mother died on March 12. He and his sister, Jan Herndon, sought to reopen the family tomb at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 in preparation for their mother's March 17 burial service.

According to Weber, Gardner asked for two separate payments: $100 made out to the city of New Orleans -- a legitimate fee -- and an additional $440 made out to Terry Gardner, whom she identified as the gravedigger.

Herndon wrote the check to Terry Gardner and left it with Alma Gardner, not questioning the transaction or any potential relationship between the two. Alma Gardner called the next day, saying that Terry Gardner wasn't able to cash the check for the full amount. She demanded that Herndon pay him an additional $40.

Weber and Herndon discontinued correspondence with Alma Gardner after they confirmed that Terry Gardner had indeed cashed the check for the full amount. Five months later, the other check Herndon handed to Alma Gardner, $100 made out to the city of New Orleans, still hasn't cleared.

Woman is reprimanded

Gardner's first reported transgression, involving Nanette Nelson, was made known to her supervisor at the Department of Property Management in mid-July. After that incident, Gardner was reprimanded but continued to work as an employee of the cemetery division. Gardner's supervisor, Ed Mazoue, said her actions did not merit harsher measures because, to his knowledge, she had never committed any other infractions. However, he was tight-lipped on the extent to which his department investigated the matter.

Weber and Dumestre did not file complaints with property management officials until early August, after they read about Nelson's experience.

Dumestre's conclusion that Gardner had been hiring out her grandson, or a man purporting to be her grandson, seems consistent with the testimony of Weber, whose sister made out a $440 check to Terry Gardner; and with that of Nelson, who was told by a gravedigger in Holt Cemetery that Alma Gardner was his grandmother. As in Weber's case, Dumestre said the $100 check her family wrote to the city for the interment fee has never cleared.

Rusty Costanza, The Times-PicayuneLillie Vannor, left, Jeni Nelson, Tyrone Nelson, kneeling, Nanette Nelson and Darryl Simms visit the grave of Lillie Nelson at Holt Cemetery in New Orleans in July. When city employee Ava Gardner told Nanette Nelson to bring $350 the day of the service to hire a gravedigger that ultimately didn't show up, Nelson reported it to higher-ups and discovered that Gardner had violated city law.

Alma Gardner's motives for hiring her alleged relative is uncertain, and it is not known whether she received a share of the gravedigging fees in return.

That her actions went unnoticed speaks to the scant level of attention devoted to the administration and maintenance of the city's graveyards, where the caretaking staff have dwindled through the years to just one or two workers.

Neither the city's property management department nor the cemetery division has a website, making it difficult to identify staff members or understand the proper policies and procedures concerning interments in city-owned cemeteries. None of the families who complained about Gardner were aware of the illegality of her actions until long after the fact.

City burial services

Part of the confusion may stem from the procedure the city uses for burials in its cemeteries. While families go through a funeral home to arrange a graveside funeral service for the deceased, the actual digging and filling of graves and the opening and closing of tombs isn't part of the funeral home service.

For that, families must hire a gravedigging crew. Most private cemeteries provide crews, but the city's property management department got rid of its crews after budget deficits forced it to whittle down its cemetery staff.

Since then, anyone desiring to bury a relative in a city-owned cemetery must file an application with the Division of Cemeteries and pay a $100 fee to have a city employee monitor the gravedigging. According to a city law put in place after Katrina, the city is supposed to provide the family with a list of private firms that supply gravedigging services, but the family must select the firm and make payments independently of the city.

New Orleans' languishing public cemeteries, whose labyrinths of moldering tombs and poorly marked, overlapping graves have earned them a reputation as potter's fields, have run up against other problems.

Because cemetery records were waterlogged five years ago, no one can keep track of who is buried where, although coffins sometimes re-emerge from their shallow graves as a macabre reminder. Several members of Save Our Cemeteries, a local nonprofit group, say they've locked horns with a well-connected con artist who squats in the sexton's shack at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 and reportedly solicits money from visitors.

In response to the latest allegations, a spokesman for Mayor Mitch Landrieu said that man was removed from the premises as of mid-August, and that the city's Division of Cemeteries now has new leadership. It is not clear whether Gardner continues to handle cemetery affairs.

"There's not nearly enough money, resources or manpower to maintain the facilities," Ryan Berni said.

"It's an issue that had been unaddressed for a while when we (Mayor Landrieu's administration) came in and we're doing our best to remedy it with limited resources."

Aimee Miles can be reached at amiles@... or 504.826.3318.

� 2010 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

[URL http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/08/3_families_say_new_orleans_cem.html#incart_rh]

For those of you with an interest in the HISTORICAL abuses and neglect of HOLT cemetery feel free to view the archived RootsWeb posts.  It is lengthy.

The WDSU archive had this article:

WDSU Archives - search term "cemetery"

Unkempt Cemetery Haunts FamilyCity Says Resources Are Stretched Too Thin[NEWSVINE: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family] [DELICIOUS: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family] [DIGG: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family] [FACEBOOK: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family] [REDDIT: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family] [RSS] [PRINT: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family] [EMAIL: Unkempt Cemetery Haunts Family]NEW ORLEANS, Updated 11:25 a.m. EDT July 6, 2000 -- Conditions at the city-owned Holt cemetery have never been perfect, but one family decided that things had gone too far when they went to put flowers on their father's grave and were horrified by what they saw.

Graves unkempt"It's just awful. When we came, my mother cried," Reynell Payne told 6 On Your Side reporter Stephanie Boswell.

What was once a peaceful burial ground had turned into an overgrown lot, with headstones covered by tall weeds and poison ivy.

"It's been bad, but never this bad," Payne said. "This is just awful. All you see is grass -- high grass. That grass there is taller than me."

VideoReynell PaynePayne describes conditions at Holt

To make matters worse, a huge oak tree had fallen on top of the Paynes' three family plots, and when Reynell Payne called the city about cleaning up the cemetery, she didn't get the response that she expected.

"The graveyard has been trying to get (the Department of Parks and) Parkways to come and cut this tree down, and they have been trying for months," Payne said. "But they could never come and cut this tree down."

Since Payne's complaint, there are signs that groundskeepers have started cleaning up, but not much progress has been made. A spokesperson for the mayor's office said property mangement is aware of the fallen tree and plans to remove it.

"It's sad," Payne said. "Really sad."

Holt cemeteryPayne's mother said she isn't too hopeful and already is making arrangements to move her husband to another cemetery.

The city said crews are working overtime to cut grass on the neutral ground and other city-owned property, and it relies on volunteers and groups such as Save Our Cemeteries to help them maintain Holt and other cemeteries.

Have a complaint about city-owned property?

City Advocacy: (504)565-7115Parks and Parkways, Administration: (504)286-2100

Or call the 6 On Your Side hotline at (800)416-NEWS.

Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced UpVolunteers Rake Leaves, Cut Grass And Pull Weeds

UPDATED: 5:11 p.m. CDT August 19, 2000[NEWSVINE: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up] [DELICIOUS: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up] [DIGG: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up] [FACEBOOK: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up] [REDDIT: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up] [RSS] [PRINT: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up] [EMAIL: Historic Cemeteries Are Spruced Up]Saturday morning the Save Our Cemeteries Organization and several volunteers from a local community service projects cleaned up several historic cemeteries.

Volunteers raked leaves, cut grass and pulled weeds at the Holt Cemetery on City Park drive.

Holt Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in the city, but also one of the most neglected according to WDSU NewsChannel 6.

Other cemeteries that were cleaned up by volunteers were Lafayette #2, St. Mary Cemetery and The Valence Street Cemetery.

Copyright 2002 by TheNewOrleansChannel.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten.

Here are a few more posts on RootsWeb concerning HOLT.

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/la-cemetery-preservation/2008-07/1214933379

Saving Graves

Site MapHolt CemeteryNew Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana

Date: January 05, 2001

Cemetery: Holt CemeteryStreet: 527 City Park AvenueCity: New OrleansTownship:County: Orleans ParishState: LouisianaNation: USAZip: 70119Nearby: Behind the Administration building of Delgado Community CollegeLand Type: PublicStatus: ActiveAccessible: YesUnmarked graves: YesGraves within: approximately 2,000 - 3,000Oldest grave: 1879Newest grave: currently in useRecords: YesInventory: UnsureRecords location: records are stored at Carrollton Cemetery, New Orleans; this location is where all records for City-owned cemeteries are storedOwner: City of New Orleans, Property Management, Real Estate Department; Mr. Kerry DeKay, Property Manager, Mr. Edwin Mazoue, Real Estate Manager, Ms. Clementine Bean, Cemetery ManagerCondition: Cemetery neglectedRemoved HeadstonesOvergrown-ground coverOvergrown-vinesBroken HeadstonesDisintegrating HeadstonesFallen HeadstonesPrevious contacts: Our first efforts were to contact the City of New Orleans; due to budget constraints they were unable to assist us. Through great fortune, three groups - Save Our Cemeteries, New Orleans Cares, and the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association - joined forces to start the project "Hope For Holt." This project sponsors twice-monthly clean-ups at Holt Cemetery. Through donations we have been able to acquire tools necessary to cut the grass and weeds at this 7 acre cemetery. Additionally, we have tried to make other repairs/improvements at the site. While the improvements that have been made to date have been quite noticeable, there is still much work to do, including: repairs to the drainage, replacement of deteriorated fencing, repairs to the cemetery building. While the improvements have been significant, any and all assistance to reach our goal is welcomed.Work Status: Since our first report, Holt Cemetery has received an enormous amount of attention. Twice monthly clean-ups are occurring and numerous volunteer organizations are now involved. Holt has gained the attention of Mayor Morial, and is now on the verge of being "saved"!

NSU dig traces roots of Chackbay church
By KEYON K. JEFF

St. Luke Baptist Church is easy to pass by while driving through Chackbay.

What was once the spiritual center of an independent black community is dilapidated. Overgrowth has nearly blended the property with the woods. Its history is slowly fading from the collective conscious.

But a group of current and former Nicholls State sociology students has embarked on the Little Zion/St. Luke Baptist Church Service Learning Project in hopes of rediscovering the historical contributions the church laid for African-Americans in south Louisiana and Lafourche Parish in particular.

"This allows us to look at that part of southern history that somehow doesn't always get into the textbooks," said Dr. James A. Butler, Nicholls associate professor of sociology and principal investigator on the project.

The Nicholls State Sociology Club took a big step toward capturing some of the last memories of St. Luke before it was abandoned in the late 1960s.

On July 26, the club gathered members of the Shanklin and Woods families, descendents of one of the church's founding families - the Parks - at the Moses Community Center in Thibodaux. The purpose was to collect oral histories from members who attended the church.

"This needs to be done because there are too many stories that get lost," said Tom Shanklin, a second-year Assumption High School Spanish teacher. "I don't remember that church as a kid growing up in the early 1960s. Obviously, it was there."

"This is a beautiful thing," said Priscilla Macintosh, the great-great-great-granddaughter of founding members Joseph and Sarah Parks. "I was surprised because I learned some new information besides the information I collected over the past year. I only remember the church as a little bitty girl in the 1950s."

Most of the oldest Shanklin family members could not make the mini-reunion, but the club did conduct nine interviews, three from those who attended services at St. Luke.

'The family members have been very cooperative," said Tina Granger, research associate for the Little Zion/St. Luke's Baptist Church Project. "They are very interested in helping us move forward on this project."

For the students, the experience does not just fulfill an academic pursuit. It helps them understand the impact of their work on the people and themselves.

"I felt great talking to the different people," said Ja'costa Parker, 18, a sophomore sociology major from New Orleans. "Hearing how they feel about St. Luke, what they know about St. Luke, makes it more than just a church ... it was a community."

Service Learning

Driving to pick up his grandson from Sixth Ward Middle School in 2006, the old abandoned church on Louisiana Highway 20 caught Dr. Butler's eye. He knew immediately it was something he wanted his students to investigate.

"Prior to that, I had been talking to students about doing community service and other research projects," he said, "but I was looking for something a little different, and I was interested in service-learning."

The idea was to bind academia and the community together to make students much more rounded. In the fall 2006 semester, he challenged Granger, then-president of the Sociology Club, to head the task.

"Dr. Butler asked me this one question," she recalled. "'Mrs. Granger, have you considered that little church in Chackbay?' I had no idea what he was talking about. I had never seen it, didn't have any history, and neither did anyone else."

Granger and the rest of the Sociology Club began their research in the Lafourche Parish Clerk of Court office trying to find ownership records.

The first six months proved fruitless. While people in Chackbay knew the church as St. Luke, all the legal records were under its original name, Little Zion Baptist Church.

"From finding the title Little Zion, all the land titles came forward, and the names of individuals came forward," said Granger, who graduated in May with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and Associate of Science in paralegal work.

Origins of Little Zion

Little Zion sits on Lot 15 of what was once Cleona Plantation.

After the Civil War, the land was sold twice, first to a Leon Guidry in 1868, and then four years later to Louisiana Nelson and Washington Dunn.

On Sept. 4, 1882, Nelson and Dunn separated the land and sold the property to the congregation of Little Zion Baptist Church.

"The church was not incorporated until 1891 but that was quite an achievement for an African-American church at that time," Granger explained.

Little Zion's roll of incorporation listed 30 members over the age of 21, seven of whom were members of the Parks family.

The ancestors were Joseph and Sarah Parks, slaves emancipated after the Civil War. They had 12 children, seven of whom survived.

Parks and the other founding families of Little Zion did back-breaking, labor-intensive jobs to earn a living - farming, moss gathering, tree cutting, making railroad ties or day laboring in the sugarcane fields. A few found work in the nearby Bowie Lumber Mill.

On Jan. 2, 1878, Joseph bought 40 acres of land across from Grand Bayou in a joint venture with Gabriel Vicks and Michel Mitchell. The trio paid $500 - with a down payment of $300 and two annual payments of $100 - at eight percent interest for the property. It was a tremendous feat for the black men to independently own land.

The church and the community were unified and thrived for about a quarter-century. In 1907, however, there seemed to be a separation of church membership.

"Part of the Parks family moved a little further up toward the Thibodaux area, and they began a new church called Little Zion," Granger said. "The remaining family members of the Parks and the Vicks family chose to stay at the old church."

Where did everybody go?

On Jan. 25, 1907, the church was sold to the congregation. A new name was chosen: St. Luke Baptist Church, by which it is known in the community to this day.

Despite being an African-American church in a mostly white rural area, no family members who attended St. Luke can recall any racial tension in Chackbay. Historical research also turns up nothing.

"It was weird," said Larry Woods, 49, who grew up near St. Luke. "Most of the trouble they (church elders) had was from us being us, doing the things we were doing. Good thing we had some serious icons, serious heroes, strong people of faith, God and life."

Many would mature from their youthful indiscretions to become prominent in the church themselves. Over time, they would also move on and start their own churches not far from St. Luke.

Woods' grandfather, the Rev. Joseph Woods Sr., started a congregation in Greenwood. His brother, the Rev. Alex Woods, ministered at a church in Labadieville.

In the late 1960s, St. Luke held its last congregational meeting. The Rev. Andrew Robinson, who was the father-in-law of Woods Sr., was the last known presiding pastor of St. Luke's Baptist Church.

The congregation dispersed to Greenwood, which is no longer in operation, or other churches in the surrounding area. St. Luke had survived a cholera and two yellow fever outbreaks in 1890s, Jim Crow segregation and Hurricane Betsy in 1965, but depopulation was its undoing.

When the church disbanded, 80 years of African-American history nearly went with it. Their stories of success over the toughest of odds were almost lost to history.

"They were farmers and workers who held on to their property - held on to their church," Granger said of the landowners. "They went through the hard times of civil sanctions that were placed against African-Americans and came through. In their family are educators and doctors and lawyers today. They were an independent group of African-Americans that was very rare in rural south Louisiana."

Reclaiming St. Luke

"To my eye, it was beautiful," recalled Granger of first seeing the abandoned St. Luke in fall 2006. "As an oil painter, I could see the beauty of this church. Its lines were perfect. It was built with perfect symmetry, meaning its roofline continued into the line of the alcove."

In spite of its decaying condition, the church still stands. That is a testament to the craftsmanship of the builders who tapped into the local Bowie Lumber Mill's cypress for materials. The beams extend 24 feet high, 9 inches-by-6 inches deep in solid length.

"Being a contractor, that is beautiful lumber," Granger said. "The ceiling lats are set very close, which secure a tight fit against hurricane winds. The walls are built with a beam running sideways, which is an architectural feature that adds 100 times support against wind sheer. It is probably the reason the church still stands today. That was only discovered this past semester due to some of the planks falling."

Regardless of its aesthetic quality, the church also has a gloomy side. From the interior markings, it is clear that s�ances and other ritual acts were performed inside since its desertion.

There has been much graveyard desecration and theft there - the bell tower, pews, windows, and iron railings have vanished into the wind.

In April 2007, Butler led about 40 of his students on an extensive cleanup of the graveyard. In the process, 13 graves were discovered at the site, more than the nine originally thought to be there.

The students - not Butler, who serves more as an advisor and director - have done the majority of the research of census and genealogy records on the Little Zion/St. Luke Baptist Church project.

"The history of this particular project has been divided among several students - Tina Granger, Lakesha Woods, Yolanda Jenkins, Olinda Ricard - just to name a few," he said. "My joy comes from watching students participate, work and discover, and being excited about what they've discovered."

Last year, Butler and Granger applied for and received a grant from the University of Louisiana System.

In December 2007, the college group received a one-year, $11,000 grant to continue the project.

This semester, research will focus on Cleona Plantation and the socio-economic factors that affected the church in the 1890s.

Butler anticipates the 2008-09 year to be the final year of research on the project. Once everything is compiled, he hopes to present the findings at a national conference.

"The long-term goal is to do a much more holistic assessment beyond the church itself, but particular to the history of that church," Butler explained. "Also, the placement of all that information in NSU's Ellender Library for all who come after us and have an interest in Little Zion, that data will be there. You can go to bazaars, various functions and restaurants in Baton Rouge, for instance, and find a mural of Little Zion Baptist Church on the wall."

On Monday, students who have worked on this project will present a PowerPoint presentation and a hands-on exhibit at the Claiborne Building in Baton Rouge of all the progress they have made.

The presentation is only a glimpse into a forgotten tale of black determination to overthrow the chains of slavery and realize the promise of the American dream.

"Sometimes you find out, especially if you're African-American, when you start finding out your history, the only time you can find out about it is through some legal document," Shanklin said. "(The project) may not tell the story, but the result of the story. You just don't know the whole story."

tina granger wrote on Aug 8, 2008 9:13 AM: