AEC
#2 - Slave Cemetery
The path from the top of the grassy hillside leading to the cemetery was carpeted with fallen leaves. As I lifted the barbed-wire pole gate and entered beneath the cathedral-like canopy of white oak and tulip poplar trees, I felt an awe and reverence similar to what I felt at Arlington National Cemetery and Gettysburg. But there was a striking difference. Instead of rows of beautifully sculpted granite and marble monuments, there were only stones from fields or creeks at the heads and feet of sunken, ancient graves. In the silence of that hallowed ground where lay the remains of those who were born and died in bondage, slaves to a myth that one color of God’s people should exalt themselves above those of a different hue, I knew that, if at all possible, their story must be told.
I must admit, I felt a wonderful thrill as I later stood upon that ground with a racially mixed group of students and teachers from Oak Ridge and read aloud those immortal words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“...I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood.”