USCA History Club Holds Veterans Day Cleanup
Heather Peterson is an associate professor of history and the mentor of the university’s history club. Peterson has a personal interest in history and spends a lot of her time today diving into Aiken-Graniteville.
“Gives students a better appreciation of this community. They’re able to learn just how complex Aiken is…it kind of gets forgotten entirely”
Peterson shares that the History club has been her personal entryway to introducing this to the campus.
On Nov. 18 the University History Club teamed with Eyes on Aiken and Pine Lawn Cemetery to provide a Veterans Day clean-up of the cemetery.
Pine Lawn Cemetery.
Volunteers the day of the event.
Historical marker at the front of the cemetery detailing the history of the location.
Pine Lawn Cemetery, informally known as Aiken Colored Cemetery, was established in 1852. There are over 1,000 confirmed people buried in this location and over half are thought to be African Americans. Those buried have stories ranging from military veterans to the first African American woman to work at a DMV.
“One woman has an interesting history…she was killed in a Chicago race riot and was brought down here… she was exhumed to help with the civil rights investigation”
Volunteers the day of event.
Student volunteers helping with cleanup.
Although there is plenty of history within the cemetery there is work to be done before that can be looked into. Since the cemetery depends on volunteer work for upkeep there are multiple volunteer opportunities. Because of this, the History Club has been partnering with other campus organizations to spread the word.
Another bump in the road for Pine Lawn is that nobody knows for certain just how many people are buried within the cemetery. Peterson shares
“We need to find an archaeologist who is willing to donate their time or try for a grant…a lot of the graves are already on Findagrave [a website that provides coordinates for every grave within the cemetery] but there are a lot that aren’t.”
“The other thing is that we know that there are at least 1,000 people with unmarked graves…”
Peterson shares that she has hopes in the future to work with students and the community to not only be able to identify these individuals but to provide positive renovations to the property.
On Nov. 30 the USC Aiken History Club will be partnering with the Aiken County Branch of the NAACP, Gregg-Graniteville Library and Aiken Center for the Arts to present “Longing for a Place: Voices From Historic Black Graniteville”. The organization has been working with the local branch to transcribe verbal interviews provided by Daniel Lloyd Jr. and will be hosting a reception and panel. The event will be taking place at the Aiken Center for the Arts from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
