Typescript Draft of Unpublished Aunt Bea Chapter
1 2020-11-10T02:57:32+00:00 David Squires c613f45970ae89ef70516076df94370392b06674 5 1 Ernest J. Gaines Center, 10-3, Pg 106-20 plain 2020-11-10T02:57:32+00:00 David Squires c613f45970ae89ef70516076df94370392b06674This page is referenced by:
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Manuscript and Typescript Drafts
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The Black Cemetery
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The role of the Black cemetery in A Gathering of Old Men.
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The Black Cemetery
Throughout much of African-American history in the United States, segregation was a mainstay of existence. This included segregated Black cemeteries, which were often located far from public view, in heavily wooded areas. As African Americans fled the South during the Great Migration, many families and their descendant communities were separated, and many Black graveyards were left without family caretakers.
Today the remaining African-American cemeteries from the 19th and early 20th centuries are facing a widespread crisis across the United States. Many have fallen into disrepair, underfunded and forgotten. Urban redevelopment and other construction projects have demolished others. Some are barely visible under weeds and wild overgrowth. There is a growing movement today to preserve African-American cemeteries, with volunteers and nonprofit organizations stepping in to memorialize these sacred burial spaces.
The Role of the Cemetery in A Gathering of Old Men
In A Gathering of Old Men, Louisiana writer Ernest J. Gaines shows us the many ways history can be lost to time, as in the possibility of the plantation’s Black graveyard being plowed over.
A pivotal scene in the novel takes place in this Black graveyard. In the chapter entitled “Grant Bello aka Cherry,” the elderly Black men gather at the graveyard before they plan to head back to the Marshall plantation to make their final stand. The old Black graveyard, surrounded by the cane fields, is dilapidated, overgrown with weeds and knee-high grass. Many of the graves are unmarked.
Yet in this scene, the men wait together in a graveyard that had “been the burial ground for Black folks ever since the time of slavery.” Here they are able to clean off the graves, to tell stories, to remember, and to reconnect with their ancestors and the land. This moment of connection is important as they are about to do something they have never done before: stand up to the dominant system of white supremacy that had oppressed them for so long. They are standing up for themselves, and for their ancestors.
One thing the scene makes clear is that the graveyard is one of the last remaining symbols of the the Black life that worked the land. A looming threat surrounds this sacred space, encouraged by the increased mechanization of sugar cane production: one day the graves could be plowed away by the Cajuns who lease the land. The threat of an uncaring white populace plowing over the graveyard is referenced more than one in the book, to suggest a possible desecration of the Black dead and an erasure of their existence.
Later in the novel, one of the other old Black men, Johnny Paul, explains why he decided to make his stand, giving emphasis to the idea of preserving what remains. He says: “I did it for them back there under them trees. I did it ‘cause that tractor is getting closer and closer to that graveyard, and I was scared if I didn't do it, one day that tractor was go’n come in there and plow up them graves, getting rid of all proof that we ever was.”
This fictional cemetery reflects the real-life long-forgotten cemetery that inspired Gaines work — the cemetery at River Lake Plantation in South Louisiana, the author’s boyhood home and the setting inspiration for several of his novels. Surrounded by cane fields, the old plantation cemetery sits on an acre of land where Black residents of the Cherie Quarters were buried. These were the enslaved Africans and the Black sharecroppers that farmed this land for generations.
Gaines often visited the cemetery in his trips back to Louisiana in the 1960s, although back then the plot of land had been overtaken with weeds and untended. Many of the graves were unmarked, similarly to the graveyard in the novel. In the late 1990s, Gaines and his wife Dianne worked to save the cemetery and to preserve the memory of those interred in the graveyard. They formed a nonprofit called the Mount Zion River Lake Cemetery Association, which has spent years identifying the graves and working to preserve the land. Gaines and his family and friends yearly bring people together for a cemetery beautification day held on the Saturday before All Saints Day (November 1). Similarly to the old men in A Gathering of Old Men, people are able to clean the graves, to reminisce, and to honor those who once worked the land.