Unburying the Secret History of Slaves

by Professor China Galland (Author)

Watch China Galland's presentation at the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco,
the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum, July, 2007

By the eve of the Civil War, there were four million African 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.

"Love Cemetery is a moving work of immense social consciousness and spiritual power written by a very gifted writer"

- Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees

Driven to explore the meaning of darkness - from the Black Madonna to women's struggles in Latin America - Galland brings new insight to a hidden issue closer to home: slavery and its ramifications. Bill Moyers calls Galland's work "the riveting story of a remarkable effort to resurrect the dead. And it couldn't have come at a more crucial time"

- Commonwealth Club of California

"To create a page-turner about our collective shadow is the sweetest gift a writer can offer. May you weep, as did I, for what she discovers in these piney woods, and through this offering know your country and self in humbling new ways."

- Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming

China Galland was born and raised in Texas and is the award-winning author of Longing for Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna, The Bond Between Women and Love Cemetery. 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.

Hardcover
ISBN: 0060779314