Word travels fast in Harpersville, Alabama, so when Theoangelo Perkins heard that the family of Bill Parker was visiting his grave, he jumped in his car and raced to the old cemetery.
The burial ground is divided into two parts. Parker was laid to rest near the entrance with other members of the White family whose ancestors, named Wallace, once owned this land and were the second-largest enslavers in Shelby County. Nearby lies a much larger area, where the Black people who worked the land, as enslaved people or sharecroppers, and their descendants have been buried for more than a century.
For decades, the Black families maintained their portion of the private cemetery and the White descendants of the Wallace family took care of theirs. But in the early 2000s, Parker put up a fence that blocked access to the Black portion of the cemetery, local residents say, though none know exactly why.
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