Love Cemetery: Unburying the Secret History of Slaves

by China Galland

By the eve of the Civil War, there were four million slaves in North America, and Harrison County was the largest slave-owning county in Texas. So when China Galland returned to research her family history there, it should not have surprised her to learn of unmarked cemeteries for slaves. "My daddy never let anybody plow this end of the field," a local matron told a startled Galland during a visit to her antebellum mansion. "The slaves are buried there." Galland's subsequent effort to help restore just one of these cemeteries—Love Cemetery—unearths a quintessential American story of prejudice, land theft, and environmental destruction, uncovering racial wounds that are slow to heal.

Galland gathers an interracial group of local religious leaders and laypeople to work on restoring Love Cemetery, securing community access to it, and rededicating it to the memories of those buried there. In her attempt to help reconsecrate Love Cemetery, Galland unearths the ghosts of slavery that still haunt us today. Research into county historical records and interviews with local residents uncover two versions of history—one black, one white. Galland unpacks these tangled narratives to reveal a history of shame—of slavery and lynching, Jim Crow laws and land takings (the theft of land from African-Americans), and ongoing exploitation of the land surrounding the cemetery by oil and gas drilling. With dread she even discovers how her own ancestors benefited from the racial imbalance.

She also encounters some remarkable, inspiring characters in local history. Surprisingly, the original deed for the cemetery's land was granted not by a white plantation owner, but by Della Love Walker, the niece of the famous African-American cowboy Deadwood Dick. Through another member of the Love Cemetery committee, Galland discovers a connection to Marshall's native son, James L. Farmer, a founder of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Riders. In researching local history, Galland also learns of the Colored Farmers' Alliance, a statewide group formed in the 19th century that took up issues ranging from low wages paid to cotton pickers to emigration to Liberia.

By telling this one story of ultimate interracial and intergenerational cooperation, Galland provides a model of the kind of communal remembering and reconciliation that can begin to heal the deep racial scars of an entire nation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Death, Memoir, Biography, African American

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2007

Reviews

[Marisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating topic that was handled with a lot of sensitivity. That being said, the writing is just ok, and I found myself far more interested in the stories of those buried in the cemetery as well as their descendants than I was in the writer’s life and feelings about this cemetery. Also, I’m curious to know how similar/different Love Cemetery’s story is to other cemeteries for the enslaved and how they’ve been preserved (or not preserved, in so many more cases than not).

[Anastasia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has such an interesting premise, and it was such a disappointing read. The author should have taken a more objective role in telling the story of how there are cemeteries that hold the remains of enslaved people and African Americans, and which are unmarked and, in some cases, almost hidden. In many cases, the descendants don't have access to these cemeteries, even though the law generally gives them that right. Instead of telling this fascinating story and allowing people to learn more about this issue and the way it functions as a symbol of racism, the author got too caught up in her own part in reclaiming a cemetery, and in her white guilt. The author also did way too much "telling, not showing," and quoted boring dialogue and details that did nothing to move the story forward. I hope someone else might take on this story and tell it the way it needs to be told.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF- almost got there but just hit a wall. The story of the cemetery and the families and communities connected to it were interesting and worthwhile stories. Unfortunately WAY too much of this book was centered around the experience of the white author. This could have been a lot better if she could have let go of her ego and centered the community. She clearly had ways to do so, she’d nod to a story she heard and then spend several pages talking about some random African ritual she did behind the backs of the community to honor their ancestors- really?! There was a whole lot of white savior going in here.

[True · Rating 5 out of 5]

the Lady my friend China Galland. Along with the people in this town. SAVED HISTORY. Restored the souls of some buried in a cemetery probably not getting their final rest. Love this! anytime someone runs up on HISTORY and saves it and shares it with the World. Thank Goodness for her.

[Kina C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book to read. It makes me think how many unknown cemeteries have been covered up or hidden over the years.

[Nancy Eister · Rating 4 out of 5]

China Galland's exploration into her own Texan family history, and how it intersected with that of the black descendants of slavery in that area , come to life as she becomes involved with a church group saving and trying to preserve their unrecognized black family cemetery, Love Cemetery . The book is a mix of untold history and her personal reaction to it, and written ten years before Black Lives Matter is a good example of the role a white woman can play in understanding racism and becoming an ally to tell the real story and to move toward reconciliation.

[Mrs. Hassig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost couldn't finish this book - it was just so damned sad! But I did and I'm glad. For one thing, I never really knew the history of East Texas, 40 Acres and a Mule, and black cemeteries. Now I do. And I will be sure to tell others about all three of these topics as well. It's no wonder the DT administration doesn't want young people to know our country's true history. It is so incredibly tragic and frankly didn't have to happen. Lincoln's death and Johnson's complete and total destruction of Reconstruction was a failure we are all still living with in our country today. There is a quote in this book by Dr. King taken from one of his speeches and found in Stewart Burn's book "To the Mountaintop." The quote explains our country's situation perfectly -
"America is a great nation," he shouted out, but if American doesn't deal with it racism, "I'm convinced that God will bring down the curtains on this nation, the curtains of doom. "You know," he said, "there are times that you reap what you sow in history." He pounded his big King James Bible on the pulpit. "I believe it! Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap. America must resolve this race problem, or this race problem will doom America." I will never stop believing that teaching our young the truth is the best way to teach history. They are strong enough to handle it and help make our country the ideal we all dream of!

[Loren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe if I'd read this book when it came out in 2007, I would've been impressed by how groundbreaking it was in acknowledging the buried history of Black and African American cemeteries. From the perspective of 2024, the book seems to focus too much on the white author and how she felt about acknowledging the legacy of racism in Texas -- and not enough about the people and stories buried in the cemetery. I would have rather seen the surviving community in the foreground of the story.

When traditionally African American cemeteries are being rediscovered under apartment buildings in Florida, when the memory of enslaved people and their burying grounds has been erased, there is still much that needs to be said about the politics of cemeteries and their surrounding communities. I need to go find a book that is addressing those issues currently.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had some interesting history in it. It detailed live lived in slavery as well as the Jim Crow period following emancipation of Negroes and their ensuing struggle to find acceptance on all levels, Schools and educational institutions were barred from so many.Working conditions were poor and rife to the prejudice that indentured many.This book got mired down in The Love Cemetry project which was an old negro cemetery that people were cleaning up to a cemetery and trying to identify who were buried within its segretated confines

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

China Galland never intended for her research on an article about her family farm in east Texas to turn into a book about a cemetery. But one thing led to another until she found herself at the locked gate of a "blacks only" cemetery whose gravestones had disappeared under forty years worth of weeds and wisteria. From that point, China dove deeply into a maze of interconnected relationships, happenstances, and revelations about slavery which eventually brought equal parts joy and pain into her life. If you love history and true stories about it, this is a book you would enjoy.

[Margi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great book. I am enthralled with cemetery research hand this book certainly had that. The restoration of alive Cemetery in Texas is so much more than just the cemetery. Slaves are buried there and their stories along with their ancestors are fascinating. Would love to visit this place someday. “The living are not always with us...and the dead are. It always gone.”

[Jacquie]

This book started out very nicely, and then as another reader put it... fell into religion. This book had so much potential, and then fell so flat. There were a few snippets of interesting information and good background history bits, but that's it, they were just "bits"; the rest of the book seemed to have the author caught up in angst. Disappointing.

[Beth P · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of how a woman came upon a cemetery and helped ancestors of the people buried there. Also, the trials she ran into along the way. And a story about new friendships.
Some repetitive stories (probably to get the point through) got annoying, but not enough to keep anyone away from it!
I recommend it.

[Carol Brusegar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This true account from a community in East Texas reveals layers of history and racism that is so deep and continues in various forms. An excellent "case study"/example that likely has many similar cases throughout the south. Recommended.

[Caitie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5 stars.

Giving this one some benefit of the doubt because it was a quick read. However, it was also boring and have off white savior vibes. The author seemed to make this more about her rather than the cemetery.

[Lee Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of white vs. black views of the same history. Sad to read about the forgotten cemeteries for enslaved people.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story was very intriguing, but I had hoped for more history of the cemetery and less about the restoration project.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nook Book-Non-fiction - Uncovering history thru the restoration of a neglected cemetery

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

China Galland was trying to learn more about her ansectors and ended up with this book. Slavery iss a horrible part of our history.

[Sherrie Dux-Ideus · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book about historic preservation of graves.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

local woman discovers racism

[Goddardcc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reclamation of a slave cemetery in Marshall, Texas.

[barbaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love is...

A truly captivating story about an idea to restore an old cemetery where black people were buried. This story brought together strangers who became friends, worked on the project to persevere a bit of our history.

[Hedgebrook]

PUBLISHER COMMENTS:
By the eve of the Civil War, there were four million slaves in North America, and Harrison County was the largest slave-owning county in Texas. So when China Galland returned to research her family history there, it should not have surprised her to learn of unmarked cemeteries for slaves. "My daddy never let anybody plow this end of the field," a local matron told a startled Galland during a visit to her antebellum mansion. "The slaves are buried there." Galland's subsequent effort to help restore just one of these cemeteries—Love Cemetery—unearths a quintessential American story of prejudice, land theft, and environmental destruction, uncovering racial wounds that are slow to heal.

Galland gathers an interracial group of local religious leaders and laypeople to work on restoring Love Cemetery, securing community access to it, and rededicating it to the memories of those buried there. In her attempt to help reconsecrate Love Cemetery, Galland unearths the ghosts of slavery that still haunt us today. Research into county historical records and interviews with local residents uncover two versions of history—one black, one white. Galland unpacks these tangled narratives to reveal a history of shame—of slavery and lynching, Jim Crow laws and land takings (the theft of land from African-Americans), and ongoing exploitation of the land surrounding the cemetery by oil and gas drilling. With dread she even discovers how her own ancestors benefited from the racial imbalance.

She also encounters some remarkable, inspiring characters in local history. Surprisingly, the original deed for the cemetery's land was granted not by a white plantation owner, but by Della Love Walker, the niece of the famous African-American cowboy Deadwood Dick. Through another member of the Love Cemetery committee, Galland discovers a connection to Marshall's native son,James L. Farmer, a founder of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and organizer of the 1961 Freedom Riders. In researching local history, Galland also learns of the Colored Farmers' Alliance, a statewide group formed in the 19th century that took up issues ranging from low wages paid to cotton pickers to emigration to Liberia. By telling this one story of ultimate interracial and intergenerational cooperation, Galland provides a model of the kind of communal remembering and reconciliation that can begin to heal the deep racial scars of an entire nation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Texas, China Galland is the award-winning author of Longing for Darkness and The Bond Between Women. She received a Hedgebrook Writers Invitational Residency and has won awards for her writing from the California Arts Council. Galland is a professor in residence at the Center for the Arts, Religion, and Education at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, where she directs the Keepers of Love Project. She lectures, teaches, and leads retreats nationally and internationally on religion, race, and reconciliation.

[Lissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't the book that I thought it was going to be when I read the back cover. I was expecting more of a historical exploration of freed slaves in Texas, or perhaps how their descendants were faring, or...something like that. Instead, I got a memoir that really should have been condensed into a few-page article, to be honest.

The author hops around everywhere - her own history, antebellum Texas, the Jim Crow laws, land deeds, land theft, the people buried there, their descendants, and her own feelings. Wow, does she spend a lot of time on her own feelings. I swear, she spent more time discussing a misunderstanding she had with one of the descendants than anything else.

The author also spends a lot of time talking about her "guilt." I can't remember if her family owned slaves (I am thinking no), but she said that they profited from a world where slavery, and Jim Crow, happened. I honestly don't get why she feels guilty. If SHE were racist, yeah, that's something to be guilty about. But no one is responsible for what their ancestors did. If that were the case, whenever I met a German I would expect them to apologize to me - which I don't. It's one thing to say, "Hey, I'm sorry what my ancestors did to yours." It's another to internalize that and make it your own guilt. Maybe I'm odd, but I don't get it, and I don't get why the author really struggled with it, and it mired down the book.

I really think that the book would have benefited from either a better author or a better editor. Perhaps both. I wanted to like the book, because the potential subject matter was fascinating, but I ended up learning little. I was glad to put it down when I was finished.

[Margo Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

My reaction to this book was complicated and needed some time to absorb. It is not the straight forward account of the restoration of a cemetery, but rather a nuanced and personal account of how history lingers and is alive in people's perception of the present. In Texas, the history of white oppression of blacks after reconstruction is sad and scarey--especially for a white girl from the Northeast who knew very little. It was even more horrifying for the author, who suspected that her own ancestors may have taken part. It is this sense of sorrow and shame that lead her to try to make her own reparations and negotiate a very sensitive racial situation, where misunderstanding is easy and coming together can be difficult, even for the most open of people. Sometimes I wished the author would drop her moaning and groaning--her "poor me" dialogue. But at the same time, I give her credit for telling the story from her perspective and not trying to tell it from the perspective of the black descendants of the people buried in the cemetery. It isn't a book to read if you are simply interested in the mechanics of preservation, but it provides interesting insight into the culture of reconstruction and the lasting impact of history. You take from this book what you are willing to put into it.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a troubling book to review. As others reviewers have observed, the history that the author uncovers is so important to her and to all of us. Yet her writing style often gets in the way with awkward sentences that I needed to reread and chronology problems that sent me thumbing around. Yet as she delved into her relationships with the African-American community with whom she was working, she opened what may be the most powerful part of the book. Love Cemetery became a metaphor for our racial history and for the racial mistrust that still haunts us.

A good book remains with me for days, weeks. This does. It isn't really a history of a cemetery nor really a history of an African -American community. It is a gate the author unlocked; a discussion that must continue. It doesn't have a conclusion; the story of the Love Cemetery, of race in America must continue. Regardless of the writing style that I found troubling, I recommend this book because it will keep you thinking. It is essentially an essay, a woman's musings into our troubled past and equally troubling today.

[Craig Bergland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say, first and foremost, that I disagree with the reviews here that are critical of the author's writing style and wonder what they reviewers expect. When dealing with an emotionally charged subject, and when writing about relationships built and shared around such profoundly deep and painful history, a clinical and detached presentation would be a lie. This is my second China Galland book, but not my last. I appreciate that she relates her experience and her emotional reactions to the situations she describes. Such a style adds depth and humanity to the stories she relates. Love Cemetery is an outstanding book that cuts to the depth of America's long history of racism with an honesty and a sense of gravitas that I found refreshing at a time when cheap sensationalism seems to rule popular culture. This book challenges those of us who are white to look honestly at our country's struggles with racism, both past and present. It should be required reading for all Americans.

[LWF · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first ebook from the library. After reading, "The Help," I wanted to learn more about African Americans in America. This book is about the old Love Cemetery that was overgrown with wild Wysteria, weeds and trees and very few family members remembered or had ever seen the cemetery. The family ancestors and volunteers are trying to restore the cemetery so the stones can be found and visited. Have found out that a white "owner" had probably given the family the land to bury their loved ones. Very sad to find out so many graves were only marked with items a person used during their lives and no name plaques. What the Caucasians in did to African Americans was so unjust.

Currently stuck in a section of who did what, etc but the detail is boring me to death.

Download from Library has expired! I will need to re-download to finish this book. June 9, 2011

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been excellent. I would have loved to know more about the cemetery, the people buried there, the history of their lives and about the people who worked to save the cemetery. However, it was basically the tedious story of the author's struggle with her white guilt, interrupted by long, boring passages describing church services, songs and prayers...as my friend says "it went Christian".
The book starts with a story that grabs you and makes you want to know more, but that is never referred to again and it never is resolved even though I kept waiting for the author to refer back to it. The book ends so abruptly and in my opinion, mid-story, that I thought I was missing chapters.
All in all, it was an okay read, but it made me feel like the author got tired of writing the story and just ended it mid tale.