Restorative Justice CircleHonoring the History & Future of Mt. Herman Cemetery

I grew up on Francis Street. I attended John E. Ford Elementary and played in the park that is actually the cemetery.

My fraternity were buried here, and I'd like to see that there is some change.

Preacher Leo Dawson. I used to come to the park to swim at Emmett Reed.

I'm Black. It was a Black cemetery, desecrated. My people, my ancestors, have been disregarded. We are their voices.

Meeting Ennis and experiencing his passion to preserve.

The truth was lost. The Black narrative has never been told. The truth is that we are amazing. We built despite devastation, and the intention was to wipe us out.

Lost our visible recognition of Black history in Jacksonville.

I had to become 40 to learn about our community. We don't want future generations to have to wait until adulthood to learn.

How can you have pride in your environment when you are severed from the truth?

We need our truth to mold our next generations.

I'm watching three generations of families having to start over. There is a lie put out so prevalent they began to believe it.

We were stripped of our truth, identity, wealth, stability, pride, purity, innocence. They stole our story.

When I lived on 9th Street I was taught to respect my area, respect community.

History lost. Lived in Jax since '95, learned so much over the last three years. Wealth of our talent has been lost.

Lost our culture, what we did as a culture. Lost it each time pieces of how we live are taken away. Where there were lines, gets lost. The culture gets lost.

Harm is injustice.

Why does the education about African American start at the civil rights movement? There was so much before that. No one has been held accountable. Most of our young people don't know, can't be reached.

The stories are lost. A headstone or burial is a story. Persons once known.

1890s to 1911, many were buried here. There was one woman born in the 1790s who died at 100 years old here. She would have been a slave. Erasing that history.

Watch a soap opera and someone wakes up from amnesia, the continuous disenfranchisement. Asking generations to lose who they are. "Talking down to a Black person because one was a descendant of slavery, and hers was civil soldiers."

Access to information is power. Negatively impact ability and access to power.

Built environment influence on youth imagination, opportunities, and what they normalize.

Similar intention to erase with boarding school survivors' stories and their reverence for place and culture.

I took a job cleaning the cemetery, starting reading the tombstones. If I wasn't in that position, I would never get to know.

I'm a descendant of human traffickers. The price of a slave was $250; they bought children at $200. I didn't know I had a connection to Jacksonville. Willis Willows, 99th Colored Infantry.

We went to see his grave because of the widening of the road. I understand. I wanted to put my hand on the headstone.

Came here to create a new social contract: build hospitals and institutions. Edward Waters College built a Masonic temple. The mindset was to build institutions.

Dana left the skyline pin because Jax is made up of neighbors, but still one city.

We needed to understand that even with GPR, bodies are under the building and the parking lot, which are not included in GPR. How do we embrace the realities? We have enjoyed this space, this community center, and honor those that rest below. What does a memorial park look like? What do we do with the research of the bodies and graves that were desecrated, and yet many have childhood memories here? It's complex emotions. How do we tell the truth? I don't know yet.

We need to honor those that have given their lives and acknowledge so many regular people and celebrities trying to know their identity.

Repair begins with us. We need to continue the conversation in a publication, a podcast. We need to document, that way the information is accessible.

Repair doesn't mean to get rid of other people's history.

A place of gratefulness. Telling our stories, the good and the bad, with memories. Highlight the joy.

We made scraps into soul food. We need to listen to what everyone has to say.

We need our storytelling to be in tandem and in sync.

Memorial wall, a couple of them, to symbolize name, date, photo if we can. Do not tear down this building.

A picture of what the cemetery used to be. Take some of the plaques. Mt. Herman Center was part of the cemetery. The parking lot was Mt. Herman. Raised plaque. Note the Coastline Railroad you'd have to cross to get to the playground. Remember by noting the plaque. Narrative, culture, neighborhood, what was happening. Cemetery. Durkeeville area that made way for the cemetery as well.

Plaques are important. Funeral rites, tradition, or a second line to celebrate the gathering. Something that is including people in the recognition.

These meetings have been here 50 years. Just found out there is a cemetery here.

Just because COJ is throwing money, there needs to be an acknowledgement.

There are a lot of ways.

There are so many people. How can they contribute?

HOAs, neighborhood associations that we can reach. How: seniors, youth programs. Find ways to share voice.

Engaging other ways of learning and receiving information outside of reading. Those are ways of repair.