Black History Month - February 28, 2021

Can you make out the name on this headstone in Wyoming Cemetery? It’s not easy. It reads “SARAH E daughter George & Alice SNOWDEN.” The dates at the bottom of the stone are even harder to decipher, but seem to say “Sept 1877” and “Jul 1878.” Sarah was an infant who died when she was less than a year old. She was also Black.

George and Alice Snowden were Black immigrants to Virginia who first appeared in the 1880 census. This headstone is the only evidence that their daughter Sarah ever lived; there is neither birth nor death certificate on file for her. Yet the hearts carved into this stone, a design not found elsewhere in the cemetery, tell us how much her life meant to her parents, who had traveled to Melrose to raise a family far from their memories of the Virginia plantations.

George and Alice would live in Melrose for decades, have several more children, and eventually grandchildren as well. Perhaps one of their descendants left this synthetic flower for Sarah, which has just reemerged from beneath the snow.

The difficulty in deciphering Sarah’s headstone symbolizes the greater struggle in discerning Melrose’s Black past. Because their lives were undervalued while they lived, Black people were less likely to be included in written records and oral histories. The process of recovering their memory is not easy, and has required significant detective work. Yet the reward from this effort is priceless. It means making whole the history of this community that aspires to be open to all.

While Black History Month is drawing to a close, we invite you to join us in a continuing effort to recognize and memorialize Melrose’s Black history. Please complete the following survey, so that we can discern how best to proceed in this work. The survey is anonymous, but you do have the option of leaving your E-mail address for future updates: https://forms.gle/PhM7qeRx2maoj5mj7.

Thank you all for your comments and likes on our posts. When we first began this series, we expected trolls and naysayers. That this community has been open to hearing about some of the most painful episodes in our past bodes well for the future of all of us.

#blackhistorymonth #melrosema