A (43:55)
Yeah. This whole thing is so upsetting. Upsettingly. A fair number of these desecrated graves belong to children from a portion of the cemetery known as Baby Land. Additionally, the historic casket that Emmett Till had been waked and buried in was found in a storage shed with a family of possums living inside of it. Years later, it was restored and is now on display at the National Museum of African American history in Washington, D.C. one of the sources I spoke to for my research project, Edward Boone, has numerous family members buried in this cemetery. He told me that he had been trying to raise the alarm on poor conditions at the cemetery for years, but was routinely ignored by both cemetery management and local politicians. Additionally, one of the reasons he believes cemetery management was able to get away with their crimes for so long is that a lot of the graves in the cemetery lack markers over history. Many of the families who buried loved ones there lacked the funds to erect proper headstones. Even then, some graves that had headstones were still disturbed, their headstones thrown away, which made it difficult for loved ones to locate burial sites later on. Ultimately, the manager of the cemetery at the time, Carolyn Towns, pleaded guilty to dismembering bodies and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Other employees who participated in the crimes were convicted and received lesser amounts of jail time. I know that this is all really heavy and depressing information. However, speaking to Edward Boone was such an honor and restored my sense of hope. He is currently the chair of a group called Friends of Bur Oak Cemetery and continues to work to restore dignity to those buried there. He organizes cleanup projects and works with affected families to provide updated burial location information for their loved ones. In May of 2025, his organization commemorated a memorial inside of the cemetery where remains that were recovered but unidentified were reburied. The memorial location is called the Circle of Rest. Another amazing person I came across while researching my project was Dr. Jeremy Crock. Jeremy is an avid baseball fan. However, he told me that as a white man, he had never been taught about the Negro Leagues while growing up. No, I understand this term is not used anymore, but is the it is the historical term that was used at the time. In his own time, Jeremy started doing extensive research into Negro League baseball, which featured African American players unable to join Major League Baseball in the early 20th century due to segregation. This research brought Jeremy to Burr Oak Cemetery, where many Negro League baseball players are buried. However, Jeremy noticed that many of them either lacked grave markers or their headstones were in deplorable conditions. He took it upon himself to regularly volunteer to clean and beautify the grave sites. He told me what motivated him was how these amazingly talented baseball players were disrespected in life and subjected to horrendous racism. His belief is that these men should be given the credit and respect they always deserved in life. He created the Negro League's Baseball Grave Marker Project, which has paid for headstones for more than 50 players at Burr Oak and other cemeteries. Anyways, thank you for taking the time to read this rather long story. My hope is that with the work being done by dedicated people like Edward and Jeremy, Burr Oak Cemetery can be restored to a place of peace where the history of and care of its occupants isn't overshadowing by the crimes and controversies that had taken place there. I'm attaching a picture I took of Emmett Till's gravesite back when I visited the cemetery for my research project. Best regards, Naomi. So I love that story because, I mean, as I briefly mentioned in my cemetery episode that we did back in October, I think, you know, segregation in. When we have discussions about cemeteries and how spooky and cool and creepy they are. And, like, we talk about how glaringly horrific that is. And this story was. Is a really good example of the ongoing issues that are still persisting when it comes to that subject. And the book I recommended, Over My Dead Body, goes into great detail about that. But I did want to mention just really briefly because Naomi spoke a lot about Emmett Till. Two things. A personal antidote. That movie absolutely wrecked me. Have you seen it?
