America's oldest Black town is threatened by floods - and seeking a Plan B
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Sunday, January 28, 2024 • • General
January 28, 2024 - On a blustery January afternoon in Princeville, N.C., about 35 citizens met with their mayor, elected commissioners and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in their new flood-resistant town hall, built in 2020. Across Main Street, elderly residents were climbing two flights of stairs to enter their senior center, raised 14 feet above ground level in 2021. A quarter-mile away, the Tar River — Princeville's longtime nemesis — rolled on quietly, north to south. The Tar and its latent forces were the reason for this meeting. Princeville, the oldest Black-chartered town in the United States, has suffered through at least nine hurricanes and floods since it was established at the end of the Civil War. They're only getting worse. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd breached the town's levee and left 10 feet of standing water for two weeks, destroying nearly 1,000 buildings. Floyd was followed in 2016 by Matthew, which again breached the levee and demolished half the town.
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Tuesday, February 3, 2026 • • General
WASHINGTON (7News) — Three historic Black cemeteries in Washington, D.C., are getting a financial boost as the city moves to preserve sacred ground and the stories tied to it.
The District announced two grants totaling $250,000 for the care and preservation of cemeteries in Georgetown and Benning Ridge. Two nonprofits, the Woodlawn Cemetery Perpetual Care Association and the Black Georgetown Foundation, will each receive $125,000 to support research, maintenance, and community education efforts during the next fiscal year.
City leaders say the investment is part of a broader push to recognize and protect Black history in the nation's capital, especially places that were historically underfunded.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2025 • • General
The burying ground looks like an abandoned lot. Holding the remains of upward of 22,000 enslaved and free people of color, the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground in Richmond, Virginia, established in 1816, sits amid highways and surface roads. Above the expanse of unmarked graves loom a deserted auto shop, a power substation, a massive billboard. The bare ground of the cemetery is strewn with weeds.
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Friday, September 26, 2025 • • General
It is our pleasure to announce that the Unity Cemetery Fund is accepting applications for funding in 2026. The attached PDF includes detailed information about the grant process. Applications will be due February 28th, 2026. The award will be announced in May 2026.
In 2024 the Unity Cemetery Fund was pleased to be able to award funding to Geer Cemetery in North Carolina for needed repairs and infrastructure work, and in 2025 we provided funding to the Descendants of Olivewood in Texas for needed repairs within their cemetery.
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