Historic Preservation

12 Jul 2026 T. DeWayne Moore

Archival Processing, Historic Preservation Bethlehem United Methodist Church (Hempstead, Community Archives, Hempstead (TX), National Register of Historic Places, Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL)

Opening the Archives

Opening the Archives: Bethlehem United Methodist Church Preserves More Than a Century of Community Memory

By Zha’Mauri Howard and T. DeWayne Moore

This old file cabinet contained the oldest church records in the collection dating from the 1910s [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

This week marked another important milestone in the preservation of African American history in Waller County.

Alongside my graduate student, Zha’Mauri Howard, and longtime church member Geneva Moore, we spent the day working inside Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Hempstead, Texas, organizing and assessing the church’s remarkable archival collection. We were also joined by Geneva’s daughter, Loretta Sanchez, making this a truly multigenerational day of historical discovery.

What we encountered exceeded our expectations.

For generations, Bethlehem United Methodist Church has carefully safeguarded its own history. Hidden inside cabinets, filing drawers, closets, and storage spaces were decades of church records waiting to tell their stories.

Among the materials we examined were:

historic photographs
anniversary and Homecoming programs
administrative records
membership materials
correspondence
church publications
handwritten notes
bound record books
and numerous unidentified historical documents dating across much of the twentieth century.

Every folder opened revealed another piece of the congregation’s remarkable history.

Geneva Moore and Loretta Sanchez digging through old file cabinets that contained church records from the 1960s and 1970s [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

Loretta Sanchez digging through an old file cabinet that contained church records from the 1910s and 1920s [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

One of the most rewarding moments came as Geneva Moore and longtime church members carefully examined photographs and documents together. Their conversations transformed unidentified faces into named individuals, anonymous events into remembered occasions, and ordinary papers into living history. Archival work is never simply about preserving documents—it is about preserving memory.

The collection also contains records that will help document Bethlehem’s evolution from the nineteenth century through the Civil Rights era and into the present. These materials will significantly strengthen the church’s ongoing historic preservation efforts and provide future researchers with an extraordinary resource for understanding African American religious life in Waller County.

Loretta Sanchez and Albert Garfield

(L to R) Zha’Mauri Howard, Geneva Moore, Albert Garfield, Loretta Sanchez, and Dr. DeWayne Moore [Photograph © T. DeWayne Moore 2026]

Our graduate student Zha’mauri Howard joined us throughout the visit, helping document the collection and learning firsthand how community archives are preserved through collaboration with descendant communities. Experiences like these demonstrate why hands-on public history training is so valuable. Students are not simply learning archival theory—they are participating in the preservation of history that matters deeply to living communities.

As Director of the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab at Prairie View A&M University, I am continually reminded that the most important archives are often still in the hands of the communities that created them. Rather than waiting for these records to arrive in a university repository, we can partner with churches, families, and local organizations to help preserve them where they remain most meaningful.

1976 Homecoming Program Cover

1986 Homecoming Program Cover

The photographs from this visit capture more than archival work. They document trust, collaboration, and shared stewardship. They show community members identifying photographs, examining decades-old records, exploring hidden storage cabinets filled with historical materials, and celebrating discoveries together.

This work represents the beginning—not the end—of Bethlehem’s archival preservation project. Over the coming months, the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab will continue working with the congregation to organize, preserve, digitize, and describe these materials while ensuring that the history of one of Hempstead’s most important African American institutions remains accessible for future generations.

History survives because people choose to preserve it.

At Bethlehem United Methodist Church, that work is well underway.

This handwritten financial ledger captures a meticulous snapshot of community contributions gathered on a single day in July 1920.

This meeting log dated January 10, 1932 records the names of individuals who came to BUMC

This project reflects the mission of the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab: partnering with communities to preserve African American history through archival stewardship, student training, and public history collaboration.

Program cover for Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel

12 Jun 2026 T. DeWayne Moore

Historic Preservation, PVAMU Events Digital PV Panther Project, East Texas Historical Association, The City of Prairie View (TX), The Texas Institute for the Study of History and Culture, Waller County Historical Commission (WCHC), Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL)

Honoring Emancipation: Juneteenth Celebrations in Waller County

Ten Community and Academic Partners Unite to Celebrate Juneteenth 2026 Across Prairie View and Hempstead

Learn More about Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (June 8, 2026) — Ten academic, cultural, religious, civic, and community organizations will come together June 16–20 to present one of the largest collaborative Juneteenth commemorations in Waller County history. Through exhibitions, public programs, community celebrations, historic preservation initiatives, and scholarly presentations, the partnership will honor the enduring legacy of emancipation while highlighting the people, institutions, and historic places that continue to shape African American life in Texas.

The 2026 Juneteenth observance is a collaborative effort involving the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC), Prairie View A&M University’s Division of Social Sciences, the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab, the East Texas Historical Association, the Waller County Historical Society, the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission, the Texas Chapter of the Association of Gravestone Studies, Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church, Bethlehem United Methodist Church, and Waller County Precinct 3. Together, these organizations represent a shared commitment to public history, community memory, historic preservation, education, and civic engagement.

On June 16, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC) will launch its Pre-Juneteenth Celebration with a public Story Slam and exhibit reception inside PVAMU’s award-winning Nathelyne Archie-Kennedy Building, a striking 105,000-square-foot facility that houses both TIPHC and the School of Architecture. Designed as a dynamic environment for creativity, collaboration, and interdisciplinary learning, the building itself reflects the university’s commitment to innovation, preservation, and public engagement.

The centerpiece of the pre-celebration is The Freedom to Heal: Juneteenth and Texas’ Most Determined Medical Legacies, 1865–1976, a new exhibition curated by TIPHC Director Lauren Kelley. Her interpretive experience challenges visitors to view Juneteenth as more than the end of slavery; rather, it was the beginning of a generations-long struggle to secure the fundamental rights to health, education, opportunity, and human dignity. Drawing upon photographs, archival records, and personal stories, Kelley crafts an experience that is both deeply relatable and profoundly moving, inviting reflection from anyone who has ever hoped to build a better future for themselves and their children.

Kelley’s particular gift as a curator lies in her ability to uncover the human stories that connect freedom, resilience, and community transformation. She introduces visitors to remarkable physicians, nurses, educators, hospital leaders, and grassroots advocates who refused to accept the limitations imposed by segregation and systemic exclusion. Yet her greatest achievement is revealing the creativity, determination, and collective effort required to build institutions, expand access to care, and train future generations. Through these stories, Kelley reminds us that the promise of Juneteenth has always depended upon ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Their legacy challenges us to continue the work of creating a healthier, more equitable, and more hopeful future for Texas.

The Freedom to Heal helps us understand why Juneteenth remains not only a commemoration of freedom gained but also a celebration of the generations of African Americans who transformed that freedom into lasting institutions, opportunities, and progress. It’s a fitting prelude to the community celebrations that begin on the morning of June 19, when the Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church will host its 26th Annual Juneteenth Parade and Celebration in Hempstead, Texas. With family-friendly festivities and guest speaker Waller County Commissioner Kendric Jones, the theme “Pain to Progress” (2 Chronicles 7:14) reminds us that Juneteenth is more than a celebration. It is an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices, struggles, and triumphs that transformed a people once denied freedom into generations of leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, pastors, and public servants.

Beginning with a community parade through Hempstead and culminating in a day of fellowship at Hempstead City Park, the 26th Annual Juneteenth Parade and Celebration honors both the history of emancipation and the enduring spirit of community progress. Led by Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church and Pastor Rev. Fred Thomas III, the event brings together residents of all ages to celebrate a legacy of resilience, faith, and hope that continues to shape Hempstead and Waller County today.

Later that evening, Constable Smith will host Waller County Precinct 3’s 15th Annual Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom, honoring the legacy of emancipation while celebrating the progress, resilience, and achievements of African Americans. Featuring fellowship, food, music, games, and family-friendly activities at the Waller County Community Center in Prairie View, the celebration is located not far from the usual event site—the historic home of the last PVAMU principal and former PVAMU President Edward Bertram Evans at 102 Dorsey Drive. Constable Smith’s event highlights the importance of preserving institutional history and strengthening the bonds that unite the community today. The Precinct 3 Constable’s Office and the City of Prairie View have come together on this national holiday since 2012 to remind us of opportunities to empower and serve our community. In 2026, the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission made a pledge to Constable Smith and the residents of this city: for the 2027 Juneteenth Celebration of Freedom, we will be celebrating the nomination of the historic home of Dr. Evans to the National Register of Historic Places.

It should have been on the list long ago, and we look forward to building on the momentum of the 14 Families historic marker project as well as the forthcoming NRHP nomination for the Bethlehem United Methodist Church, founded in 1869 by formerly enslaved men and women of faith in Hempstead, TX.

The following day, June 20, is perhaps the most anticipated of the entire Juneteenth week of activities. The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab and the PVAMU Division of Social Sciences will host the 10th New Deal Conference in collaboration with the East Texas Historical Association at the Welcome Center on the PVAMU campus. A special part of this year’s conference is the collaborative efforts of the Waller County Historical Society, the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission, and the Association of Gravestone Studies to present “Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.”

The day begins with registration, welcoming remarks from East Texas Historical Association Executive Director M. Scott Sosebee and Prairie View A&M University Interim Chair of the Division of Social Sciences Ronald E. Goodwin, and opening comments from New Deal Symposium founder George Cooper. The first session of research papers features presentations examining New Deal-era and twentieth-century history, including convict labor and prison reform during the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project in Texas, and the evolution of jazz.

Following the morning scholarly session, participants will travel by shuttle to Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery for Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, highlighted by remarks from Paul Jackson, Assistant Trail Boss of the Prairie View Trail Ride Association. This is the 4th iteration of the program. Since 2022, Prairie View native Pamela Morgan has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the historic cemetery that holds forever close the remains of her ancestor, World War II veteran Milo Wilson, whose military headstone is one of the few grave markers in a burial ground containing the remains of over 150 people. She organized the first Juneteenth celebration at the cemetery in 2022, after she reached out to Junior McKay of the Waller County Historical Society to assist in her efforts to better care for the historical burial ground. At the time, the grass and weeds had grown so high that she could not even find the headstones, which sit in a field just north of the historical marker. McKay put Morgan in touch with T. DeWayne Moore, an Assistant Professor of History at PVAMU, who conducts research about heritage tourism, memorialization, and the resounding impact of resource hoarding on African American cemeteries. Dr. Moore wrote a $20,000 grant to the Summerlee Foundation to complete the geophysical study begun by scholars at Rice University in 2008, and he enlisted dozens of his students to conduct archival research and increase awareness and interest in the cemetery.

The 2026 program provides another opportunity to engage directly with one of Prairie View’s most significant historic landscapes and will also serve as a platform to recognize local people who have had an unusually positive impact on Waller County.

After returning from the cemetery and sharing a catered barbecue lunch, the second session of the New Deal Conference features presentations exploring housing and homeownership under the New Deal, the impact of anti-German discrimination during World War I, and the relationship between Texas politics, race, and federal policy during the Roosevelt administration. The symposium concludes with closing comments from representatives from the 1) Waller County Historical Society (WCHS), 2) the City of Prairie View African American Heritage Commission, 3) the Texas chapter of the Association of Gravestone Studies(AGS), 4) the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL), 5) the Greater St. Peter’s Baptist Church, 6) Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Hempstead, 7) Waller County Precinct 3, 8) the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC), 9) the PVAMU Division of Social Sciences (DSS) and 10) the East Texas Historical Association—bringing together themes of public history, community memory, civil rights, cultural heritage, and the preservation of East Texas history. Through a combination of scholarly research, community engagement, and site-based interpretation, the program connects the history of the New Deal to the broader story of freedom, citizenship, and remembrance commemorated through Juneteenth at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery on PVAMU’s campus.

The Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab (WDPL) at Prairie View A&M University advances the preservation, accessibility, and interpretation of African American history through digital preservation, archival processing, scholarly publishing, oral history, and community-engaged public history. As a teaching and research laboratory, WDPL trains students in archival practice, digitization, metadata creation, digital storytelling, and emerging technologies while preserving historically underrepresented voices, communities, and cultural resources.

Through partnerships with community organizations, churches, cemeteries, museums, scholars, and public agencies, WDPL supports the documentation and stewardship of historical collections across Texas and the broader African American diaspora. The lab develops innovative approaches to digital preservation, including large-scale digitization projects, community archives, cemetery documentation, geospatial interpretation, and artificial intelligence-assisted research tools. By combining academic scholarship with public engagement, WDPL promotes the educational, cultural, civic, and social value of preserving historical memory for future generations.

7 Oct 2025 Evelyn Todd

Ghana, Historic Preservation, Oral History, Student Internships Ancestry, Evelyn Todd, Ghana, Historic Preservation, pvamu

All in a Summer’s Work: Part 3

All in a Summer’s Work

By Evelyn Todd

When I first started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what to expect or how much I’d write. I just knew that I would be cracking my chest open and finally applying words to the head-spinning experiences of my summer. Well…Here I am sharing my summer with you in three parts:

My Thoughts, The Work I Did, and Where Am I Now?

I have found that curiosity tends to leave people discovering valuable things about themselves, others, and the world around them. I hope it leaves you with questions and the desire to find out.

Where Am I Now? Part 3

The burden of the Black American historian is painful, birthing weariness and hope simultaneously.

– Evelyn Todd

At the Cape Coast Slave Castle in Ghana

[Photo © Culture Beyond Borders 2025]

A week and a half after I finished my internship at the plantations, I landed on the continent in Accra, Ghana. I spent the next 12 days living with my eyes wide open. I felt what freedom must feel like for the first time. It was kinda like being a kid again. That small period of innocence every Black child has before they have their first run in with racism. The relief of seeing mostly other Black and/or African folks after being the only one for the summer washed me anew. Truly, I felt like I came home.

W.E.B. DuBois, whose home [now museum] I was honored to visit in Accra, introduced this concept of double consciousness in his book, The Souls of Black Folk. Since learning about this idea in high school, it is a perspective that I carry with me and heavily identify with. DuBois defines the concept as Black people in America having to operate not only in how they perceive themselves but also with how others, specifically white people, perceive them as well. In Ghana, I lived solely as myself. I never once felt the internal pressure to present myself in any other way than as myself. My presence was not dangerous or the source of someone else’s perverted entertainment. I was welcomed, safe, genuine, and free.

Moments from my trip in Ghana

I enjoyed the flow of Ghana. The constant movement and energy navigating different spaces in Ghana was invigorating.

The Assin Manso Slave River and Cape Coast Slave Castle

Footage captured from my Ghana trip at the river and castle. One of the more heartbreaking aspects of this day is how water was used. I love being in and near water. It was difficult to process the horrors of these locations being so close to something that brings me peace.

As I finish my last semester of graduate school, I reflect on all that I have done to preserve our history here at PV and this summer in Brazoria County, and I find it hard to separate it from my more recent experiences in Ghana. I walked the path to the Assin Manso Ancestral Slave River for the Last Bath and stood in the dungeons in Cape Coast at the Slave Castle. Whatever emotions and ideas I had solely for my work done prior has been snatched and folded into a greater experience in Ghana that I will always be finding the words for.

I do know this: I have been gifted a through line. God answered a question I’ve had since childhood. I no longer have to wonder what our ancestors could have gone through. I’ve been to both sides, lived on both lands, laid eyes on both atrocities that our ancestors managed to survive. Do you understand how long they lived in chains? Multiple months walking to the river, who knows how long in the dungeons, more months on the seas to Turtle Island or the other islands. You have no idea the darkness that could taint our souls, yet and still we find reasons to smile, create, bless those who curse us, and laugh with joy. Resilience isn’t even the word for it. Although I would never wish my history on anyone else, I would choose this skin, this life, this bloodline over and over and over again.

In lieu of a conclusion [because my ruminations of this summer will never be complete], here’s where I want to focus: I hope I brought someone home. I spent my summer learning about and caring for the lives of indigenous and Black women [and men] who survived incomprehensibly unimaginable things and gave us their descendants to share their stories. I saw myself in the women I learned from. It honestly felt like I spent the summer talking with them, fighting for them, grieving for them and my own ancestors, and wanting them to know how amazingly important they are. Then for me to return to where our roots run the deepest. To stand barefoot and free in the waters and wash my feet with gratitude of their survival. For my hair and skin to thrive and glow like never before. To laugh loudly to tears, joke, dance, and sing with a divinely orchestrated tribe of a family. To gather, play spades, talk trash, and reflect over the journeys we’ve had. To know joy as my portion where their last moments only knew sorrow and pain, I am humbled at the notion of carrying their stories and mine home. It weighs on my soul to know that my trip to Ghana is the first time many bloodlines made it back to the land they only knew as home. It has been 400 plus years of living displaced, and it sparks these final questions in my mind:

How often do we fulfill the prophecies that persist in our lineage? Whose prayers were answered by my [our] return home?

Bringing Them Home

Part of the mural at the entrance to the Assin Manso Slave River Site entrance

30 Sep 2025 Evelyn Todd

Historic Preservation, Oral History, Student Internships Digital PV Panther Project, Evelyn Todd, pvamu, Southeast Texas

All in a Summer’s Work: Part Deux

All in a Summer’s Work

By Evelyn Todd

When I first started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what to expect or how much I’d write. I just knew that I would be cracking my chest open and finally applying words to the head-spinning experiences of my summer. Well…Here I am sharing my summer with you in three parts:

My Thoughts, The Work I Did, and Where Am I Now?

I have found that curiosity tends to leave people discovering valuable things about themselves, others, and the world around them. I hope it leaves you with questions and the desire to find out.

The Work I Did Part Deux

The burden of the Black American historian is painful, birthing weariness and hope simultaneously.

– Evelyn Todd

My Workstation at Varner-Hogg [Patton] Plantation

I had to start using post-it notes to keep up with the major information I was finding through my research.

I worked through many oral histories, researched plenty of information, and expanded family trees based on the dots I was able to connect. However, the oral histories of one specific descendant holds my heart, and I pray that her family’s history gets the light and recognition it deserves. Cora Faye Williams is the great granddaughter of Ellen (Maxey) and granddaughter of Henrietta Wines. Ellen is an enslaved indigenous woman, most likely from Virginia, and she was brought to Texas by the man who enslaved her, Elisha Maxey, in the mid to late 1830s. [For those who are shocked by this, please know that I was beyond belief to find out that indigenous folks were still being enslaved or sent to other southern states with looser or no laws for decades after the Native American Slave Trade ended.] They soon settled near the Patton Plantation where Elisha became an overseer, married a woman from a local well-to-do family, and started a family. Around the same time, Ellen gave birth to Henrietta and, possibly, one to two other children by Elisha as well. For a few years, Elisha would lease out Ellen and Henrietta to the Patton Plantation as slave labor. Up until Elisha’s death which coincided with Ellen and Henrietta’s emancipation in 1865, Ellen also held the task of taking care of Elisha’s white family as well as her own. After he died, his wife told Ellen that she and her kids needed to leave their property, and so they did. However, neither Ellen or Henrietta chose to leave the county they had come to know as home. Henrietta soon married Sandy Wines Sr. and began a family of her own near Patton Plantation.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find any further information for Ellen in my research, but I was able to find more information for Henrietta. About 40 years after emancipation, Cora Faye shared that she and her two sisters were brought back to Columbia by their father to come live with their grandmother, Henrietta. The girls’ mother had just passed away, and their dad needed to bring them back to his childhood home for support. Cora Faye, the oldest of the three, quickly became known for her quick wits and curiosity. So much so, that the town doctor asked Henrietta to let Cora Faye live with his family as he taught her to become a nurse. Henrietta refused because, understandably, she wanted to keep the girls together. The doctor pivoted and had new mothers ask for Cora Faye to come help in their postpartum recovery. As the community’s doctor, then, took Cora Faye under his wing and trained her to become a midwife, Cora Faye started to notice the differences in other families’ skin tones. Cora Faye started asking her grandmother why her family would look white, indigenous or Black, and other families would all look the same as white or Black. Henrietta was initially hesitant to share and somewhat discouraged by her brother’s outburst over Cora Faye’s curiosity. However, with some badgering and encouragement from other family members and her close white friends, Henrietta soon sat down and told Cora Faye about her life, and why their family looked so unique.

At this moment in this 1993 interview, Cora Faye (86 years old) is sharing how she learned about her grandmother history.

This gem is the research of Cary Cordova about the Enslaved People of Patton Plantation in Brazoria County, Texas

*deep breath in* Before I move on, let’s take a second. Hearing that Cora Faye’s grandmother’s friends and knitting posse were the older white women in the town struck me as…odd. Yes, Henrietta is an indigenous and white woman through parentage, yet her lived experiences align closely with the Black folk around her. Also, this is the early 1900s to 1930s in southeast Texas in a county that, at one point, had 63 plantations! I did not expect to learn how communal and familial Columbia (now, West and East Columbia) used to be, post-slavery. Even though, Black people in the community definitely had a “place”, racial tensions and issues were minimum in Cora Faye’s retellings. She shared that if the Black and white kids got into arguments or fights, the parents made them work it out. Families had understandings, and the KKK was not as prevalent in that area based on another community member’s oral history. The Hogg family was often spoken of treating the Black people who worked for them or were sharecroppers on their land with benevolence. Personally, I believe that there was a lack of overtly racial tension in the community because many a white man also had a black family or a black child or two running around, and it was well known… *deep breath out*

Anyways, there is still so much unknown about Ellen and Henrietta. This is the disservice done for many descendants of enslaved folks, and I believe this is why I made it my personal goal for the internship to unearth as much as I could about Ellen, Henrietta, and their family. Because the Patton family was intentional to keep payment records so therefore, the names of the people they enslaved, it gave me access to gems that are uncommon in Black American genealogical research. Their records combined with my research also showed me how diabolical the origination of Texas as a state was, as well as the “domestic” slave trading that persisted decades after it was no longer legal. Sound familiar? It is quite jarring to see middle aged emancipated folks on the 1870 and 1880 census records with their birthplace as Africa.

While learning about Cora Faye’s matriarchs, she also shared an anecdote about a cousin of hers which lined up with a similar story I read about another matriarch in the community. Both of these women, as young teens, were given by their white father and owner to other white men to be with and bear children for. With this information, I dug through other oral histories until I found one by the latter woman’s grandson. In it, he shared the truth I was seeking to find; the women, Anna and Mary Jeffrey, were sisters, and I later learned that their mother was from Africa. One sister, Mary, refused to stay with that man, and after the birth of her daughter, came back home and found life and love as she saw fit. The other sister, Anna, created a family out of her situation and cultivated a life for herself and her kids. As I reflected on all of their lives, it reminded me of Maya Angelou’s poem, “Caged Bird”.

Excerpt of “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind

and floats downstream

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

Through sharing her family’s history, Cora Faye, living to 106 years of age, leapt on the back of the wind and carried the song of freedom that her grandmother, great grandmother, and cousins sang. By breathing life into Ellen, Henrietta, Mary, and Anna’s journeys, it kept them important. I felt blessed to be able to honor the lives of women who lived in and survived the Patton Plantation and Brazoria County. To add their lived experiences to what’s known about the lives of the enslaved women at the Patton Plantation. There is so much I learned and will forever carry with me. However, I still have a plethora of questions that will probably never be answered: What tribe was Ellen from? Where in Africa was Anna and Mary’s mother from? What was her name? Had Ellen grown up in slavery? Did she even know her family? After emancipation, what made these ladies stay? And the question I will spend the rest of my life seeking the answer for:

Picture of Anna Jeffrey

I found this possible picture of Anna Jeffrey while trying to piece together her and Mary’s family tree.

What traditions and rites were sacrificed in order for our ancestors’ bloodlines, like Ellen’s, Mary’s, and Anna’s, to survive?

Where Am I Now? – Part 3 will be published mid-October 2025.

23 Sep 2025 Evelyn Todd

Historic Preservation, Student Internships Digital PV Panther Project, Evelyn Todd, Texas Historical Commission (THC)

All in a Summer’s Work

By Evelyn Todd

When I first started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what to expect or how much I’d write. I just knew that I would be cracking my chest open and finally applying words to the head-spinning experiences of my summer. Well…Here I am sharing my summer with you in three parts:

My Thoughts, The Work I Did, and Where Am I Now?

I have found that curiosity tends to leave people discovering valuable things about themselves, others, and the world around them. I hope it leaves you with questions and the desire to find out.

My Thoughts Part One

The burden of the Black American historian is painful, birthing weariness and hope simultaneously.

– Evelyn Todd

Final Presentation at the Texas Historical Commission

Evelyn Todd delivering her final presentation on August 8, 2025 [Photo © Brandalyn Thompson 2025]

Every time I tell someone what I did at my internship this summer, I get the same reaction. It’s a mix of shock, intrigue, slight horror, sympathy, and maybe a sprinkle of respect. My summer internship is something I never thought I’d do, but I am, to some degree, not surprised that it happened.

This summer, I had the honor to be a Preservation Scholar Intern for the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission. I was tasked with transcribing the oral histories from the 1980s-1990s of the descendants of the enslaved and other community members. For two and a half months, I lived on site at the Levi Jordan Plantation and worked at the Varner-Hogg (Patton) Plantation in Brazoria County, Texas. The original goal of my project was to add to the very large catalog of oral history transcriptions. If I found something else that piqued my interest, I was allowed to look into it and possibly create a second project. That is exactly what I did. [A.N.: Moving forwards, I will only refer to the Varner Hogg Plantation as the Patton Plantation because that is the time period I will be writing about, and the legitimate name of the place when people were enslaved on that land.]

Land at Levi Jordan Plantation

Footage captured from my first day at the Levi Jordan Plantation. The objects you see in the second part of the video are two of the original sugar kettles used at their sugar mill during slavery.

This map of the “Antebellum Plantations of Brazoria County” is taken from Altor Platter, “Plantation Culture,” Ph.D dissertation, University of Houston, Texas, 1961.

Transcribing the histories humbled me and opened my mind to ways of living I had not allowed myself to give much thought. I thought I had a solid grasp on the complex experiences of enslaved Africans in America based on the books, research, museums, movies, and conversations I’ve learned from. However, there is nothing quite like hearing about an enslaved person’s life from a loved one’s lips. Within the first two weeks of my internship, it was as if my entire world had been shifted on its axis. Not only was I listening to the stories, but I was living, walking, and working on the same beautiful land where those arduous and complicated stories lived.

It all became a lot to process, and I know that I still have not mentally unpacked everything. All summer, I lived inside this quote from James Baldwin: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work.” Every weekend, I drove home to give myself some reprieve. I had to come home to my family and friends, to the familiar, to other loving Black faces, to what I inherently know as safety. At my internship, I was the only Black person at both sites which was a Catch-22 within itself. As a brilliant colleague of mine, Maya Ford, described it, “victims rarely go back to the place of their trauma”. So, I understood why I was the only one intentionally spending time on land that was cultivated to destroy people like me. Even in the Commission’s work at the sites to preserve and honor the history and lives of the enslaved and their living descendants, it is hard to be present on land that has been frozen in time.

Just as much as I learned and valued my internship, I questioned and found my rage ignited by the constant reminder of America’s failures from the restrictions placed by historically racist groupthink. I found it hard to accept yet saw the societal accuracy in how the ruins of a slave cabin and sugar mill are left exposed to nature and disobedient visitors while the Hogg family’s [Former Texas Governor, Jim Hogg’s, family owned a portion of the original plantation from 1901 to 1958 – sharecropping and oil boom years] furniture and art collection sits in a secure and climate-controlled warehouse. It bothers me that an entire subdivision backs up to the Patton Plantation on the side where most of the formerly enslaved and their descendants lived and worked. The only evidence of a slave burial site near the plantation exists in oral retellings, while Patton family members have a visible and standing memorial plot on the plantation. I was living in a blatant juxtaposition.

Do you know what it is like to see the most deprave parts of your cultural existence immortalized and on display in poor condition under the auspices of preserving and teaching history?

The Work I Did – Part 2 will be published early October 2025.

25 Oct 2024 T. DeWayne Moore

Alta Vista, Historic Preservation Alta Vista, Cemetery, Digital PV Panther Project, Jared Ellison Kirby, pvamu, Summerlee Foundation, Wyatt Chapel

New research funding at PVAMU to support study of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery

NEW RESEARCH FUNDING

To support study of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery at PVAMU

Visit the PVAMU website

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (Sept. 24, 2024) – Thanks to a $20,000 award from The Summerlee Foundation, the History Department at Prairie View A&M University has begun a comprehensive historical and archaeological study of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, located behind PVAMU. The study seeks to delineate the boundaries of the cemetery, as well as identify, as closely as possible, those interred in the mostly unmarked graves.

All photography © Nicholas Hunt, Office for Marketing and Communications, 2024

PVAMU graduate student Evelyn Todd, PVAMU Assistant Professor of History Dr. DeWayne Moore, descendant partner Bishop Pendleton, Descendant Committee Chairperson Pamela Morgan, PVAMU architecture major Zynitra Durham, and PVAMU undergraduate Kalayah Jammer

Through the process, the project hopes to tell more completely the story of the formerly enslaved, buried in the hallowed grounds, and the hardships they endured at the Alta Vista Plantation, where PVAMU stands today.

Historic

&

Abandoned

Unmarked graves in Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery

“This study will explore the African American-lived experience through participatory and archival research, digital humanities, oral history, geospatial data collection and analysis, and the creation of interactive and immersive maps in preparation for the 150^th anniversary of PVAMU in 2026,” said Dr. DeWayne Moore, a U.S. and public history professor at PVAMU.

The project was inspired by former PVAMU President Ruth Simmons, who encouraged such studies ‘to affirm to our students that we are awake, that we are concerned for their future, and that we are the Prairie View of our lineage.’”

Dr. Moore said the project is a true community effort, comprising faculty, staff, students, administrators, experts and community members to carry out the research and disseminate the resulting information.

Dr. Moore’s students have conducted interviews with several descendants of those buried in the cemetery. and he hopes that this article will encourage other descendants to reach out and contribute to the project. Due to her strong kinship ties to the University, graduate student Evelyn Todd ’21 is working on the project.

“As a student, you always hear the stories about the cemetery in the back of campus. So, it was sad to find out this was it and watch it go downhill over the years,” said Todd, who is working towards her MBA.
“I wanted to do my part to not just preserve the cemetery but honor it. I’m also really big on learning our history because if we don’t know what we’ve done or where we’ve been, then we won’t know where we’re going.”

‘To Honor Those Who Came Before Us’

The Texas state historical marker for Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery

The Alta Vista Plantation, owned by Colonel Jared E. Kirby, became property of the State of Texas in 1876. Kirby’s widow, Helen Marr Swearingen Kirby, deeded the land for the establishment of PVAMU.

Moore said history portrays Kirby as a “benevolent” slaveholder. But that all changed in the summer of 2021 when a June 24, 1936, interview with the only living person known to have been enslaved at Alta Vista surfaced.

According to Moore, Frank Edd White, a graduate student at the University of Texas, interviewed “several of the formerly enslaved in Waller County” near the Hempstead-Bellville highway. Among the interviewees was Elizabeth Burney, who had been enslaved at Alta Vista.

“She had ‘seen negro men beaten until blood ran down their legs,’” said Moore, recounting White’s record of the interview with Burney.

“’Marster Jack,’ as she referred to Kirby, ‘was sho’ mean to his slaves,’ and Burney went on to testify that ‘their food was bad…and sometimes the beef was spoiled and had worms in it, but they were glad to get it and did not complain,’” continued Moore, reading from the Burney interview. “’Their clothes were very scanty at times…Their living quarters were small and overcrowded…There was a great deal of sickness among the slaves, and when they died, a hole was dug, and they were rolled in it and covered up.’”

Moore said the Burney interview offers some of the only information recorded about the burial practices for the enslaved at Alta Vista.

The military headstone of Luther Felder is one of the only marked grave in the cemetery.

Finding & Saying the Names

“The cemetery contains a few marked graves, but the names of the internments have proven as elusive as the names of the enslaved at Alta Vista,” he said.

Among those buried at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery is Mattie Wyatt Wells, daughter of George W. Wyatt, one of several African American politicians who hailed from Waller County during the Reconstruction era.

“This cemetery contains not only the remains of enslaved men and women who once lived on the enslaved labor farm of Jared E. Kirby, but also the graves of military veterans, the formerly enslaved, and their descendants,” said Moore. “Moreover, this is an important historical site to the descendants of those interred in the cemetery as well as the larger community of Wyatt Chapel and Prairie View. We have an opportunity to invite a host of stakeholders to campus to take part in the research and memorialization process, which can help people reach a consensus about the past and feel more confident about the future.”

Check out our blog post on enslaved names!

Students and alumni work on the pedestrian survey in fall 2023

Tradition with the Annual Slave Cemetery Trek

To connect students, faculty, and the community with the area’s history, an annual Slave Cemetery Trek was a traditional event at PVAMU that was started in the 1990s by Professor Howard Jones.

However, Moore says the Slave Cemetery Trek has been undertaken by visitors interested in the history of the institution and may become an annual tradition at PVAMU.

“In the past, professors in the Division of Social, Political, and Behavioral Sciences conducted the trek in the fall, including longtime history program director and chair of the Division of Social Sciences, Dr. Ronald Goodwin, whose blog at the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture is a must-read for anyone interested in connecting the past to the present at PVAMU.”

PVAMU students, professors, staff, community members, and descendants gather to conduct the pedestrian survey in late 2023

According to a web page dedicated to the history of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery and the ongoing project, the annual Slave Cemetery Trek has garnered strong, emotional reactions from past students who have made the walk.

Some “complained about the distance while others backed away because of fear,” with one student later writing, “There needs to be an understanding that while we are here doing what we are doing, there were others who came before us that worked diligently to produce the opportunities that we have at the present time.”

How to Keep

Track of the Project

and How to Help

Two descendants standing together in front of a historical marker on PVAMU campus

Pamela Morgan & Bishop Pendleton

Believed to cover approximately three to five acres, the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery may hold more than 2,000 graves, said Moore. In the fall of 2023, his team walked the burial ground to conduct a pedestrian survey and identified almost 200 potential grave markers, using remote sensing to determine the size of the burial ground. “Community stakeholders and PVAMU students worked with archaeologists Dr. Nesta Anderson and Melanie Nichols of Legacy Cultural Resources, LLC, to conduct the pedestrian survey of the cemetery,” said Moore.

This past spring, Chet Walker of Archeo-Geophysical Associates, LLC, conducted a ground-penetrating radar, magnetometer, and LIDAR survey of the cemetery. “His team is still waiting on the official report from the various studies,” Moore explained.

Donna D. Carter, FAIA, president of Austin, Texas-based architecture firm Carter Design Associates, is also involved in the project as a preservation architect. Her team has worked on multiple historical preservation projects, and they are excited to be part of this one.

In the meantime, Moore and his team built a project website, the Digital PV Panther Project. His students update the blog regularly so everyone on campus and within the community can stay abreast of the latest project news.

In addition to the website, people can also visit the Instagram, X, and Facebook accounts of the Digital PV Panther Project for up-to-date information.

Responsible Public History Practice

“One of the main goals of the project is to demonstrate the value of transparency and responsible practice to public history,” said Moore. “By regularly blogging about our work and posting updates on social media, we hope to inspire a more community-engaged, participatory approach to historic preservation in Texas.”

A review of historical evidence, Moore said, requires a critical eye and a breadth of knowledge sharpened by an investigative spirit willing to look beyond the painted prejudices of the past.

Ground Penetrating Radar Study

“Primary source materials reflect the perspectives and biases of their authors, and they reflect the systems of power and racist ideologies of the periods in which they were written,” said Moore. “They commodify Black experiences and rarely acknowledge the humanity of enslaved people. The data-driven methods of historical inquiry have often rendered enslaved people nameless; thus, we intend to use qualitative and archival data collections to recover the names and life stories of enslaved people and their descendants.

“We seek to identify as many enslaved people by name as possible, and we intend to represent individual and collective experiences in a self-conscious, responsible frame,” Moore continued. “We plan to compile as much data as possible and employ textual analysis to read against the grain of dehumanizing archival perspectives, and we stand in solidarity with and support descendant communities in telling their own histories.”

Interested parties should email graduate student Evelyn Todd at etodd@pvamu.edu.

10 Jul 2024 T. DeWayne Moore

Historic Preservation Archaeology, Cemetery, Ground Penetrating Radar, Legacy Cultural Resources, LIDAR, Magnetometer, Wyatt Chapel

Magnetometer Study of Wyatt Chapel

Magnetometer Study of Historic Wyatt Chapel

On March 31, 2024, archaeologists Dr. Chet Walker and Aundrea Thompson returned to the campus of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) to complete their geophysical examinations of the historic burial ground of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.

This project is funded through the Summerlee Foundation.

Broken Trees in the Cemetery

Dr. Chet Walker came back to the cemetery following a massive storm that left several trees broken near the entrance to the cemetery.

The Bottom of the Tree

The top of this tree was broken off and laying on the ground

Storm Damage

Despite the storm damage, Dr. Walker managed to complete his magnetometer study of the cemetery.

The archaeologists

In the spring of 2006, Dr. Walker founded Archaeo-Geophysical Associates, LLC, an archaeological consulting firm specializing in geophysical prospection. Since that time, he has collected geophysical data on over 150 archaeological sites, now totaling much more than 1,539 Acres of Gradiometer, 115 Acres of Ground-Penetrating Radar, and 484 Acres of Electromagnetic Induction Meter.

Aundrea Thompson studied at the University of Wyoming, and she has worked as a forensic archaeologist on numerous projects in the past ten years. For more on one project, in which she located the remains of a World War II soldier and brought his remains back to the US for burial, please click HERE

Hauling their geophysical prospection equipment in a large pick-up truck around the country, Aundrea and Chet spent almost a week on campus conducting the cemetery surveys.

Not only did they push the ground-penetrating radar over the entire five acre field to determine the size of the burial ground, but they also used a drone to scan a 120 square mile area with LIDAR. Moreover, they pulled a magnetometer across the five-acre field to compile additional data.

Descendant Communities

Bishop Pendleton is a descendant of one of the individuals buried in the cemetery. He visited his ancestral burial ground during the magnetometer study.

Bishop Walter Pendleton

Rev. Pendleton shared some information about his ancestry with us at the cemetery. We plan to conduct interviews with him and several other descendants as the next stage of the project.

The cemetery

The burial ground is associated with and named after an African American church founded in the 1890s by Reverend George W. Wyatt, a one-time school teacher and politician who represented Waller and Fort Bend Counties in the state legislature in the 1880s. Based on slave schedules, Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery might contain hundreds of graves of enslaved people, formerly enslaved people, and their descendants. It sits on the former slave labor plantation of Jared E. Kirby, who, in 1860, owned more enslaved people (159) than any other planter in Austin County. No one made a formal record of these burials, however, and the historic burial ground, which is located behind University Village Phase III, was over time abandoned, especially after 1961, with the establishment of nearby Prairie View Memorial Gardens. Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery contains only a handful of marked graves, but it holds forever close the remains of three United States military veterans.

THE WYATT CHAPEL CEMETERY PROJECT

Magnetic Gradiometer

Chet pulls a large magnetic gradiometer behind him. It’s a passive instrument that measures changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Magnetic Gradiometer

Chet and Aundrea have a large magnetic gradiometer, a passive instrument that measures changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Chet and Aundrea completed the data collection with the magnetometer. Now that all the data is collected, they will analyze the data from the GPR, LIDAR, and magnetometer and submit their findings to Dr. Nesta Anderson, of Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc., who will meet with Dr. Moore and Pamela Morgan, of the Wyatt Chapel Descendants Committee, to compare the results to the findings from the pedestrian survey.

Digital PV Panther Project
John B. Coleman Library
Room 111
Prairie View, Texas 77446

Email: digitalpvpantherproject@gmail.com

Phone: 936-261-3512

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE CEMETERY PROJECT

The Headstone of Milo Wilson

We cleaned the headstone of veteran Milo Wilson with D2 biological solution in October 2023, and it looks amazing in 2024.

Stay tuned for the next installment!

14 Mar 2024 T. DeWayne Moore

Alta Vista, Historic Preservation Alta Vista, Aundrea Thompson, Digital PV Panther Project, Dr. Chet Walker, Drone, Ground Penetrating Radar, Jared Ellison Kirby, LIDAR, Magnetometer, pvamu, Summerlee Foundation, Wyatt Chapel

Finding Unmarked Graves at PVAMU

On March 12 and 13, 2024, Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc. invited ground penetrating radar specialists Dr. Chet Walker and Aundrea Thompson to visit the campus of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and conduct several geophysical examinations of the historic burial ground of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.

This project is funded through the Summerlee Foundation.

Aundrea Thompson, Dr. Chet Walker, and Dr. DeWayne Moore

Aundrea Thompson & Dr. Chet Walker met with project director and PVAMU Assistant Professor of History DeWayne Moore to learn more about the grant from the Summerlee Foundation.

The archeologists

Aundrea Thompson & Dr. Chet Walker

Student Engagement

Dr. Moore’s son, Noah, surveys the cemetery with students workers on the Digital PV Panther Project–Noah Jackson, Zynitra Durham, and Jaylynn Brantley

The archaeologists

Aundrea Thompson's Graduate Work

Hauling their geophysical prospection equipment in a large pick-up truck from Palestine, Texas, where they had been working at another archaeological site, Aundrea and Chet planned to spend two days on campus before driving to Magnolia, Texas to collaborate with the Houston Archaeological Society on a dig site.

At PVAMU, Chet and Aundrea planned to run the ground-penetrating radar over the entire five acre field to determine the size of the burial ground. In addition, they intended to scan the field with an electromagnetic induction meter as well as LIDAR [or Light Detection and Ranging], which is attached to a large drone and scans an estimated 120 acre area.

Chet Walker Locates Remains in Alabama

Ground Penetrating Radar

In this image, you can see how running the GPR looks on the grass. Making an imprint similar to that of a lawn mower, Chet and Aundrea covered the entire field, hoping to determine the size of the burial ground.

Scanning the Entire Field

By scanning the entire field, the teams intends to use the data from GPR to corroborate data obtained during the pedestrian survey in October 2023. We hope to determine the locations of graves and the size of the burial ground.

The cemetery

THE WYATT CHAPEL CEMETERY PROJECT

Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)

LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to the Earth.

Drone with LIDAR

Chet and Aundrea have several drones that can carry up to 22 pounds of equipment.

Pre-Set Navigation

With pre-set navigational controls, the drone flies back and forth in straight lines, capturing data about the contours of the earth over a 120 square mile area.

Chet and Aundrea completed the data collection using ground penetrating radar for the entire five acre field, and they obtained LIDAR data using the drone, but they plan to return later in March 2024 to complete data collection with the magnetometer. Once all the data is collected, they will analyze their findings independently and objectively, and they will submit their findings to Dr. Nesta Anderson, of Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc., who will meet with Dr. Moore and Pamela Morgan, of the Wyatt Chapel Descendants Committee, to compare the results to the findings from the pedestrian survey.

Digital PV Panther Project
John B. Coleman Library
Room 111
Prairie View, Texas 77446

Email: digitalpvpantherproject@gmail.com

Phone: 936-261-3512

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE CEMETERY PROJECT

The Headstone of Milo Wilson

We cleaned the headstone of veteran Milo Wilson with D2 biological solution in October 2023, and it looks amazing in 2024.

Stay tuned for the next installment!

11 Dec 2023 Evelyn Todd

Historic Preservation Cemetery, Digital PV Panther Project, Jared Ellison Kirby, Legacy Cultural Resources, Melanie Nichols, Nesta Anderson, Pedestrian Survey, Slave labor camp, Summerlee Foundation, Wyatt Chapel

Pedestrian Survey of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery

By Evelyn Todd

PVAMU students and alumni as well as members of the Waller County Historical Commission and the Prairie View Heritage Committee prepare to begin the survey on October 21, 2023 [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

On October 21, we met with the Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc. team at the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery. We began the second phase of the cemetery study, where we conducted the Archaeological Pedestrian Survey.

The archaeologists led a team of student volunteers in an intensive pedestrian survey of the project area. We anticipated to cover 3-5 acres in size. Archaeologists worked with small groups of students, teaching them basic pedestrian survey techniques. After the pastor of the Wyatt Chapel Baptist Church prayed and blessed the team, the survey began.

As we marked and mapped out the gravesite, the archaeologists also worked with the students to record the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery as an archaeological site. This will provide it with a state-registered trinomial. Students worked with archaeologists to record the burial ground in the field on a TexSite form. We plan to submit and contact the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL) in Austin to obtain the trinomial.

The small groups walked the project area in transects spaced 30 meters (m) apart, looking for evidence of grave markers, grave tending artifacts, depressions, or other potential indicators of the presence of burials. After we marked these features with pin flags, the archaeologists taught participants how to map the burial site with a handheld Trimble GPS unit. Since we hoped to disturb the burial ground as little as possible, we did not collect any artifacts as part of the pedestrian survey. Instead, we photographed grave marker and grave tending artifacts in the field.

Lindsay Boknight looking for unmarked graves during the pedestrian survey on October 21, 2023 [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

Nesta Anderson and Melanie Nichols explaining to students and alumni the process of recording unmarked burials in a cemetery [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

There were a few surprising finds during the survey. We were shocked to realize how large the gravesite was compared to the estimations. Students marked off graves along most of the fence lines. We also found grave tending materials around a tree closer to the front of the walking path than expected.

The headstone of Elsie Bailey after initial cleaning with D2 biological solution [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

The broken headstone of Albert "Pap" Colling [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

We also learned a new technique for determining burial spots. Using the pin flags, we were told to push them into the ground in areas we believed marked a grave. If the pin flag was restricted from going too far into the ground, that was used as a point of interest to where someone may have been buried. Using this method, we found areas in the cemetery where there appeared to be parallel rows of burials. This method also helped us find possible burial sites near a group of 3 trees. At these trees, students also found a large cluster of grave tending materials and grave borders, which tends to signify a family was buried there.

Based on reports in the early 2000s, this gravesite was unknowingly being used as a dumping ground. Once this was found out, the powers that be had the trash moved. However, the trash was bulldozed further back and to the right onto that land and fenced in. As we worked on the Pedestrian Survey, we could get a whiff of the trash behind the fence as we got closer to the fence or if the wind blew. The pastor of Wyatt Chapel Baptist Church and others from the community believe that cemetery extends to where the trash now sits.

The military headstone of Luther B. Felder over a year after cleaning with D2 biological solution [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

The headstone of Milo Wilson Jr. after the initial cleaning with D2 biological solution [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

Towards the end of the survey, Nesta Anderson and Melanie Nichols–of Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc–went over the fence and performed an examination of the trash pile. We plan to report our findings to the Texas Historical Commission, which will offer guidance on the removal of the trash. In doing this, it will help us to get written authorization from the THC to remove the garbage and survey that land as well.

Melanie Nichols, Gregory Newton, Nesta Anderson, and Sabrina Francis record the last of the unmarked burials in the cemetery [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

Gregory Newton leans over to examine one of the many field stones uncovered in the cemetery [Photo © T. DeWayne Moore, 2023]

Overall, the second phase of the cemetery study was successful, and the team plans to move on to the third phase in the upcoming spring semester.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by KPVU-TV (@kpvutv)

The Digital PV Panther Project looks forward to receiving feedback from both Legacy Cultural Resources and the Texas Historical Commission in 2024!

Our mission at the Digital PV Panther Project is to eliminate historical silences through digital storytelling and prevent the erasure of African American history through historic preservation at PVAMU.

12 Nov 2022 T. DeWayne Moore

Historic Preservation ArcGIS, archives, Cemetery, Dr. Jessica Ward, GIS Mapping, Prairie View Memorial Park Cemetery, Texas Cemetery Restoration

Prairie View Memorial Park Cemetery

This map of Prairie View Memorial Park Cemetery was provided by Texas Cemetery Restoration, LLC.

We appreciate Dr. Jessica Ward, Assistant Professor of the Practice in the School of Architecture at PVAMU for sharing her research with the Digital PV Panther Project.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Jessica Ward – 936-261-9800 – jaward@pvamu.edu

James “Rusty” Brenner – 214-686-0014 – rusty@texascemeteryrestoration.com

Daniel Kieninger – 214-476-8654 – dan@texascemeteryrestoration.com

www.texascemeteryrestoration.com

C:UsersDanKieningerOneDrive - Texas Cemetery Restoration LLC

Walter and Ella Anderson

The large, Black marker of the Andersons in similar to several other memorials in Prairie View Memorial Park Cemetery.

Unmarked Graves

This long, flat marker is one of several markers without a name in the cemetery.

Jeremiah Awino

The temporary marker of Jeremiah Awino was never meant to permanently mark his grave, and this grave is in danger of becoming unmarked at some point.

Cattena Fontenot

The temporary marker of Cattena Fontenot was placed on her grave in 2022.

Historic Preservation

Opening the Archives: Bethlehem United Methodist Church Preserves More Than a Century of Community Memory

By Zha’Mauri Howard and T. DeWayne Moore

Among the materials we examined were:

historic photographs

anniversary and Homecoming programs

administrative records

membership materials

correspondence

church publications

handwritten notes

bound record books

and numerous unidentified historical documents dating across much of the twentieth century.

Every folder opened revealed another piece of the congregation’s remarkable history.

History survives because people choose to preserve it.

At Bethlehem United Methodist Church, that work is well underway.

This project reflects the mission of the Woolfolk Digital Preservation Lab: partnering with communities to preserve African American history through archival stewardship, student training, and public history collaboration.

Ten Community and Academic Partners Unite to Celebrate Juneteenth 2026 Across Prairie View and Hempstead

The 2026 program provides another opportunity to engage directly with one of Prairie View’s most significant historic landscapes and will also serve as a platform to recognize local people who have had an unusually positive impact on Waller County.

All in a Summer’s Work

When I first started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what to expect or how much I’d write. I just knew that I would be cracking my chest open and finally applying words to the head-spinning experiences of my summer. Well…Here I am sharing my summer with you in three parts:

My Thoughts, The Work I Did, and Where Am I Now?

I have found that curiosity tends to leave people discovering valuable things about themselves, others, and the world around them. I hope it leaves you with questions and the desire to find out.

Where Am I Now? Part 3

At the Cape Coast Slave Castle in Ghana

Moments from my trip in Ghana

The Assin Manso Slave River and Cape Coast Slave Castle

Bringing Them Home

All in a Summer’s Work

When I first started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what to expect or how much I’d write. I just knew that I would be cracking my chest open and finally applying words to the head-spinning experiences of my summer. Well…Here I am sharing my summer with you in three parts:

My Thoughts, The Work I Did, and Where Am I Now?

I have found that curiosity tends to leave people discovering valuable things about themselves, others, and the world around them. I hope it leaves you with questions and the desire to find out.

The Work I Did Part Deux

Excerpt of “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou

Picture of Anna Jeffrey

All in a Summer’s Work

When I first started writing this blog post, I didn’t know what to expect or how much I’d write. I just knew that I would be cracking my chest open and finally applying words to the head-spinning experiences of my summer. Well…Here I am sharing my summer with you in three parts:

My Thoughts, The Work I Did, and Where Am I Now?

I have found that curiosity tends to leave people discovering valuable things about themselves, others, and the world around them. I hope it leaves you with questions and the desire to find out.

My Thoughts Part One

Land at Levi Jordan Plantation

NEW RESEARCH FUNDING

To support study of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery at PVAMU

All photography © Nicholas Hunt, Office for Marketing and Communications, 2024

Through the process, the project hopes to tell more completely the story of the formerly enslaved, buried in the hallowed grounds, and the hardships they endured at the Alta Vista Plantation, where PVAMU stands today.

Historic

&

Abandoned

The project was inspired by former PVAMU President Ruth Simmons, who encouraged such studies ‘to affirm to our students that we are awake, that we are concerned for their future, and that we are the Prairie View of our lineage.’”

Dr. Moore said the project is a true community effort, comprising faculty, staff, students, administrators, experts and community members to carry out the research and disseminate the resulting information.

“As a student, you always hear the stories about the cemetery in the back of campus. So, it was sad to find out this was it and watch it go downhill over the years,” said Todd, who is working towards her MBA.

“I wanted to do my part to not just preserve the cemetery but honor it. I’m also really big on learning our history because if we don’t know what we’ve done or where we’ve been, then we won’t know where we’re going.”

‘To Honor Those Who Came Before Us’

The Alta Vista Plantation, owned by Colonel Jared E. Kirby, became property of the State of Texas in 1876. Kirby’s widow, Helen Marr Swearingen Kirby, deeded the land for the establishment of PVAMU.

Moore said history portrays Kirby as a “benevolent” slaveholder. But that all changed in the summer of 2021 when a June 24, 1936, interview with the only living person known to have been enslaved at Alta Vista surfaced.

According to Moore, Frank Edd White, a graduate student at the University of Texas, interviewed “several of the formerly enslaved in Waller County” near the Hempstead-Bellville highway. Among the interviewees was Elizabeth Burney, who had been enslaved at Alta Vista.

“She had ‘seen negro men beaten until blood ran down their legs,’” said Moore, recounting White’s record of the interview with Burney.

Moore said the Burney interview offers some of the only information recorded about the burial practices for the enslaved at Alta Vista.

Finding & Saying the Names

Tradition with the Annual Slave Cemetery Trek

According to a web page dedicated to the history of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery and the ongoing project, the annual Slave Cemetery Trek has garnered strong, emotional reactions from past students who have made the walk.

How to Keep

Track of the Project

and How to Help

This past spring, Chet Walker of Archeo-Geophysical Associates, LLC, conducted a ground-penetrating radar, magnetometer, and LIDAR survey of the cemetery. “His team is still waiting on the official report from the various studies,” Moore explained.

Donna D. Carter, FAIA, president of Austin, Texas-based architecture firm Carter Design Associates, is also involved in the project as a preservation architect. Her team has worked on multiple historical preservation projects, and they are excited to be part of this one.

In the meantime, Moore and his team built a project website, the Digital PV Panther Project. His students update the blog regularly so everyone on campus and within the community can stay abreast of the latest project news.

In addition to the website, people can also visit the Instagram, X, and Facebook accounts of the Digital PV Panther Project for up-to-date information.

Responsible Public History Practice

Interested parties should email graduate student Evelyn Todd at etodd@pvamu.edu.

Magnetometer Study of Historic Wyatt Chapel

On March 31, 2024, archaeologists Dr. Chet Walker and Aundrea Thompson returned to the campus of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) to complete their geophysical examinations of the historic burial ground of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.

This project is funded through the Summerlee Foundation.

Broken Trees in the Cemetery

The Bottom of the Tree

Storm Damage

The archaeologists

The cemetery

Magnetic Gradiometer

Magnetic Gradiometer