Love Cemetery: Unburying the Secret History of Slaves

by China Galland

Book Overview

One woman's struggle to restore an old slave cemetery uncovers centuries-old racism

When China Galland visited her childhood hometown in east Texas, she learned of an unmarked cemetery for slaves-Love Cemetery. Her ensuing quest to restore and reclaim the cemetary unearths racial wounds that have never completely healed. Research becomes activism as she organizes a grassroots, interracial committee, made up of local religious leaders and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060859555
• ISBN13: 9780060859558
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Amazing True Story About A Woman's Journey

I literally could not put this book down. Don't let the title fool you, it's not just about resurrecting a cemetery, it's about resurrecting your soul. It's a feel good book that everyone needs to read.

opening of the heart and mind

I have read all of Ms. Galland's books and found life-changing hope there. They create within me renewed commitment to find a place in the world that might bring a bit of healing. As a Louisiana native who has recently moved to Maine, so much of the material is familiar to me, yet seen from a slightly different lens can be life altering. The message of unity and love stated and acted out in so many small and large ways is so important right now in our polarized nation. Many thanks to the author. Elizabeth Owen

Choosing Love

Here is a readable, moving, fascinating example of how a "grain of sand" can, indeed, contain the universe. The grain in this case is an out-of-the-way, overgrown, all-but-forgotten graveyard in East Texas. A true storyteller, Galland chronicles the work of a small, inter-racial group (which she convened) to regain access to Love Cemetery and then clear away forty years of enforced neglect to reveal markers and graves of African-Americans all the way back to slave times. In order to truly understand the deepest implications of the story that had claimed her, Galland "unburies" the complex history of racism in the U.S. with particular focus on the years between the end of hostilities in the Civil War and the end of federally protected reconstruction, a time in which hope flourished and black literacy, land-ownership and political access became a reality. But behind the story of Love Cemetery, Galland shows us, lie decades of land-theft, re-disenfranchisement and exclusion that began when federal troops were withdrawn from the South and, along with the slavery that preceded it, cast a long shadow over the present. But most importantly, she shows us that reconciliation is possible if we are able to "choose love when there is reason to hate."

Must read story on race and reconciliation

Galland books is both moving and thought provoking. An important summer read, for families, students, historians, and social activists grappling with America's relationship with past and current civil rights.