Here are the truths we know:
- In an initial survey of Woodland Cemetery on July 29, 2020, we identified what we believe to be 215 unmarked graves in an African-American burial ground that dates from circa 1830. We expect to find more.
- We know a significant portion of the African-American gravesites—160 graves thus far—are on the western side of the hill in Woodland Cemetery.
- We know there are modern-era burials intruding into the historic African-American burial ground, and there may be plot boundaries that contain historic burials and modern-era burials.
- We know in 1960 the university requested and received a court order (PDF) to move enslaved people and laborer graves, and we know the university did move some of those graves to an area in the southern part of the cemetery.
- We know the university undertook several efforts in the 1990s and 2000s to identify historic gravesites in the cemetery, but the results were inconclusive; beginning in 1993 the university began assigning “new” plots within the historic African-American burial ground.
- We know the university has failed to properly honor, mark, or protect this burial ground despite some attempts to do so since 1946 (PDF).
- We know, right now, that we do not know more. We do not know what, in fullness, happened. We do not know the fullness of why it happened. But what we know now is disturbing enough to raise significant and uncomfortable questions that will likely take several years of research to answer.
“Minutes of the Building and Grounds Committee, 11 March 1946,” Series 7, Box 1, Folder 6, Robert F. Poole Presidential Records, Committee Files, 1928-1955, Special Collections and Archives, Clemson University Libraries.
