![]() Reed was finally buried in the veterans' section of the cemetery. After a three-month standoff the Board of Trustees of the cemetery voted on January 8, 1952, to admit African-American veterans on the same terms as those of the " White" race. His actions caught the attention of Thomasena Grigsby, a fellow activist, who then published an editorial in The Chicago Defender. Ragsdale worked with the Greater Phoenix Council for Civic Unity (GPCCU) with the intention of publicizing the controversy in the media, both locally and nationally. The American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans organizations wanted to put an end to this procedure and to the discriminatory practices of the cemetery and therefore, did not provide the requested letters. Reed, a 19 year old African-American soldier who was killed in the Korean War, remained unburied in a mortuary owned by Lincoln Ragsdale because the Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery officials requested letters of petition from 3 veterans' organizations accepting the body. In November 1951, the body of PFC Thomas C. The first early structures in the cemetery were a crematorium, a columbarium and a mausoleum.Īccording to the book "History and Memory in African American Culture" by Genevieve Fabres and Robert O'Meally, the Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery had a racial policy and was involved in a controversy. Greenwood Memorial Park, the first of the two cemeteries which make up Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery, was established in 1906, by the Arizona Lodge No.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |