Freedman's Memorial, Dallas

Freedman's African Memorial Park and Cemetery Dallas,Tx.

This area of Dallas County was settled by formerly enslaved African Americans shortly after the conclusion of the American Civil War. Freedman's Cemetery, a graveyard for African Americans, was established in 1869 on one acre of land purchased by trustee Sam Eakins. Another 3 acres was acquired for cemetery purposes in 1879 by trustees A. Wilhite, Frank Read, A. Boyd, T. Watson, George English, Silas Pitman, and the Rev. A. R. Griggs, a former enslaved African who later became a prominent local church leader and champion of early public education for the African American community.

The community of churches, commercial enterprises, and residences that had developed in this area by the turn of the 20th century was by 1912 a part of the City of Dallas. Construction of the Central Expressway through here in the 1930s virtually eliminated all physical above-ground reminders of the cemetery. Sacred land was desecrated without regard or respect for the deceased.

Descendants of persons buried here and the City of Dallas agreed in 1965 to establish the Freedman's Memorial Park and Cemetery at this site. Beginning in 1989 representatives of the community worked with the City of Dallas and the Texas Department of Transportation to preserve the historic Freedman's Cemetery site prior to highway expansion.

(1993)

Each year during the last Saturday of October a collective of organization and community members join together to pay tribute and honor the early African Pioneers who who were laid to rest in this sacred space.

Sun re o (rest in peace) Remarkable ancestors.

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