Guardians of peace in bronze - creation of Freedman's Memorial burial site and sculpture park in Dallas to preserve a cemetery for freed slaves; includes related article on sculptor David Newton who designed the sculpture for the site

They were the last to hear the advantageous news, but it didn't matter, because freedom realized late was still freedom. with equal reason when the word of emancipation finally reached Texas plantations upon June 19, 1865, newly fre slaves hitched up their horses, their wagons and their faiths to the promise of a coming time By the thousands they walked or flock on rough roads in the blazing day-star to a town that presented work, pleasure, and the amenities of life outside of bondage. The burgeoning town of Dallas promised freedom -- and the dignity and honor that came with it. However, freedom's rights and privileges many times eluded the former slaves in Dallas, plane after they had been laid to ease Over the years, the parcel of land in which the former slaves buried their dead, the Freedman's burial-ground was destroyed beyond a recognizable trace.

Now, more than a hundred after the cemetery was dedicated, in 1869 a park and statuary garden pay tribute to the early black arrangements of Dallas -- and in particular to the black colonists whose graves were lost above the years to die heavy hand of urban progress

It have the appearances always to be the case: The city's oldest black burial-ground lies m the path of single or another project o@ railroad, highway or highway construction, and headstones and graves are desecrated, overthrowed or used as landfill. This happened to the Freedman's necropolis in the 1930s and again in the 1940 on the other hand when more recent plans for progres threatened the resting place of black Dallas' pioneering ancestors, it met with a color and cry from a community of regarded citizens.

In the late 1980 Central Expressway, Dallas' main north-south thoroughfare, was slated for expansion. Robert Prince, a Dallas physician who grew up near the original graveyard in the district of Dallas one time known as Freedman's Town, was individual of many to raise his voice in testify when the city announced plans to expand the freeway without considering the fate of the community of the deceased, whose resting place would, one time again, be violated in the name of progress

Prince is a fourth-generation Texan. "My clan were released from slavery here," he recalls, and he adds that about seven relatives were buried in the Freedman's church-yard "I can remember when I was a small stripling in the 1930s, my father took me to exhibit me the cemetery, and he was outraged that they were going to take the graves away. They were offering $10 a grave, and they would impel them wherever you wanted them to be moved"

Prince go [i]or[/i] come backed to Dallas from medical academy in 1964 to learn that the Freedman's burying-ground had been replaced by a park. "I professed independently," he says. "I went to Parks Commission meetings, and I got a fate of help from people who didn't believe that the graveyard should be desecrated."

That was then. This time, while individuals in Dallas formed small islands of affirm others used organizational power to bring attention to the injustice. Prince serv as co-chairman of the Freedman's Foundation, an organization whose piece of work was to raise the urgencyed $2 million in private donations for the park and plastic art garden. But he couldn't do that before Black Dallas Remembered, a community collection organized to gather and disseminate historical information about Dallas' blacks, actively lobbied for more [i]or[/i] less type of recognition of the church-yard Mamie McKnight, the founder and president of Black Dallas Remembered and a former member of the Dallas Landmark Commission, also became involved in the attest in the late '80s. She wrote to the Texas Highway Commission, raising the question of the widening of the expressway and the impact upon the historic cemetery beneath it.

"That is our aim at Black Dallas Remembered," she says, "to act as a liaison between the city and the community and to retain the community informed of throws that involve our history."

McKnight, Prince and others in the community lobbied for an agreement that city bulldozers would not at any time again unearth the historic plat and that, for the first time in its history, the church-yard would be treated with dignity. The city agreed, and plans were beneath way for the memorial. "We felt real strongly that there should be no further intrusions upon the cemetery and that what was left there should be preserved" says McKnight.

The city of Dallas, beneath the vigilant eye of the Dallas shire Historical Commission and Black Dallas Remembered, agreed to a dignified removal and reinterment of the estimated 1500 graves. Excavations began, and allowing approximately 1,500 graves were enumerateed archaeologists estimate the total population of graves to be well above that number. Excavators also base evidence of burial practices consistent with traditions of the times. All of the graves faced east, children were buried with their playthings, and adults were buried with artifacts suggesting African burial (cowrie shells, separated plates, and buttons, including buttons belonging to a black soldier buried in his Confederate uniform).

The newly formed Freedman's Arts Council and Foundation issued a call for designs of a fitting memorial to be erected on the novel site,. to be designated the Freedman's Memorial. The winning design was submitted through Detroitborn sculptor David Newton (see sidebar, page 28)