VIRGINIA NEWS – Graves and bodies of former black tobacco farmers in Danville, Virginia, set to be moved for an industrial park

Laila Kirkpatrick, Staff Writer

The remains of hundreds of African American tenant farmers who worked on Virginia tobacco plantations in Danville, Virginia are set to be moved from the dedicated burial grounds to make space for an industrial park. This decision has elicited a multitude of responses and emotions from the descendants of the sharecroppers. Some of them have raised concerns about the implication of disturbing the graves of the people who were exploited and enslaved with more respect than they were afforded while they were alive. Most of the remains are unidentified and are being moved from a site that had been part of one of the nation’s largest slave-owning operations. Cedric Hairston, a descendant of those whose remains are being moved, commented on the issue saying that they were “patriots who are coming out of their graves with equal rights in 2025.

Archaeologists have exhumed approximately 275 plots, some of which contain the remains of tenant farmers and their families are already in a funeral home, but will be moved to a new burial site about a mile away. Officials have been consulting with descendants about genetic testing on unidentified remains and design for a new cemetery with a memorial archway. Jeff Bennet, whose great-great-great grandfather was buried at the plantation, said, “I don’t think anybody would want their ancestors exhumed or moved. He went on to say, “But for them to give us a lot of say so in the new cemetery, down to the design details and the plaques and memorials that we put up, I feel like (they’re) doing it in a dignified way, in a respectful way.