About Us
The Preservation of African American
Cemeteries, Inc. was founded in 2003 by a group dedicated to preserving,
restoring, and documenting African American cemeteries. Our goal is
to be a leading organization among cemetery associations, preservation groups, cemetery care-takers, or the one individual, that is
concerned with documenting and preserving their ancestral burial ground. It is
the goal of PAAC to instruct and teach the humanities the valuable information necessary
for the education and preparation of cemetery restoration, documentation and
preservation.
Founding members on January 8,2003 were:
Tamela Tenpenny-Lewis & Carla Coleman - Little Rock, AR
Phyllis Hammonds & Arthur McClinton - Helena, AR
Calvin Smith & Peggy Wright - Jonesboro, AR
Annie Winfrey - Madison, AR
Chestina Tobar - Forest City, AR
*Tenpenny-Lewis, C. Coleman representing the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society-Arkansas Chapter
*Peggy Wright representing the Delta Studies Center
and
*Hammonds, McClinton, Winfrey and Tobar representing the Arkansas Delta African American Historical Society
- also
in attendance was Lavona Wilson, representing the Arkansas Humanities Council
Why the Need?
Forming a state wide organization would bring an awareness to African-American communities of the
need to preserve cemeteries that are rarely documented. To educate the masses on how infrequently our cemeteries
appear on maps and how they are almost never shown on historic plats.
These lost and forgotten cemeteries interpret the lives of the people buried
there as well as the establishment of settlements and communities. With so many
being lost to abandonment, nature, development and vandals their arose the need
for the protection and documentation of these cemeteries and citizens contained
therein.
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