Save, cherish this cemetery, what it tells us
Time slowly covered the Hockley-clay Cemetery. Set on the Northeast Side, the black cemetery was hidden not just by overgrowth and brush but also a sprawling city that would grow around it. Roads stretched outward, neighborhoods sprouted, families came and went as life in San Antonio marched forward. Generations passed, and the once-thriving black settlements in the area faded. But they never disappeared from collective memory or the record.
As Express-news Staff Writer Vincent T. Davis recently reported, traces of these settlements, founded by former slaves, lingered. They could be found in hand-written letters dating back to the 1800s. Clues could be uncovered in stray documents left in family Bibles or tucked away in shoeboxes.
It took the work of renowned San Antonio historian Everett L. Fly — a 2014 National Humanities medalist — to bring these reminders of our history into high relief. Fly has confirmed the Hockley-clay Cemetery was one of three African American family cemeteries in the Wetmore area. There were also two churches and two schools in what Fly has dubbed the Griffin-hockley-winters enclave, named after the Winters and Griffin families whose oral histories are so crucial to the site.
And now that this piece of our history has been uncovered, just what should be done to preserve it and ensure it remains in our collective view?
As Fly has said, the aim is to designate the Hockley-clay Cemetery as a historical Texas cemetery and to tell a broader history about the lives of those buried there. We wholly support this effort. Part of that means purchasing property that encroaches on the cemetery’s southern boundary. But the effort also merits support from local officials to achieve historic designation for the site and help fund the maintenance and preservation of these plots — as well as any broader retelling about the forces that led to their creation.
It also means preserving the oral histories of descendants of the families with ties to the site. People like Velmil Clay, 76, whose grandmother Easter Hockley Clay unofficially oversaw the cemetery. Clay told Davis the remains of three brothers and his father are buried in these grounds. “Every member of that family, the descendants, has a story to teach us about a particular moment in time,” said Daina Ramey Berry, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “That’s why their stories and your stories are important, and they should be in history books.”
This is part of a larger uncovering of black history in San Antonio and Texas. As Davis outlined, the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, founded by Andrea Roberts at Texas A&M University, has verified more than 350 settlements of freed slaves. Researchers also believe there are 12 post-civil War black cemeteries in Bexar County.
And outside Seguin, we know of an enclave that was home to potter Hiram Wilson, who established a thriving black community. A former slave, Wilson and his brothers produced world-class pottery that has been featured in exhibits at a number of museums, including the Institute of Texan Cultures. But as the Texas State Historical Association has noted online, it was violence in 1867 that drove the Wilsons to their enclave outside Seguin.
This tapestry of history represents why these cemeteries must be preserved. Acknowledging these enclaves is one thing; understanding how they came to be, and how they inform our present and future, is another. Historians are waiting for soil scans to confirm remains at the Hockley-clay Cemetery, but history has been reawakened at the site, and so comes an opportunity for deeper collective understanding.
Mission City.
What progress has been made to revitalize downtown, attract new businesses, develop the economy and retain natives? Hundreds of millions have been invested, and it is certainly paying off in some incredible ways. But, unfortunately, family well-being has had little improvement in the past decade, according to SA2020 outcomes. So, let’s talk about 2020.
Family is the backbone of society. Almost every community ailment we point to can be traced back to the breakdown of the family.
In the past 30 years, the deterioration of family is evidenced everywhere. We are living in the most fatherless generation in history, which should be considered pandemic:
• The poverty rate is more than twice the average than that for all families.
• 90 percent of runaway and homeless youths are from fatherless homes.
• 75 percent of imprisoned men grew up without a dad.
• 71 percent of high school dropouts do not have a father at home.
• 63 percent of youth who die by suicide are from fatherless homes.
• These children are 20 times more likely to have a behavior disorder.
GLOO, a data analytics company, reports that the most important factor driving behavior across economic lines in San Antonio is family, unlike most metro areas, where money is the driving factor.
Clearly, family is very important to us, but we