If you wanted to study the town of Oakland’s African-American Cemetery, a historically important graveyard in Central Florida, it wouldn’t be easy today — even if the gate was unlocked. Overgrown patches of prickly bramble hide its plots and paths.
The west Orange town of 3,200 wants to change that.
Oakland submitted a proposal in May to Florida’s Historic Grants Program, hoping to win $25,000 or more in state funding to preserve and manage the three-acre, segregated burial site, which dates back to 1882 and likely holds some remains of emancipated slaves.
“It connects generations — past, present and future,” said Betty Wade, 73, whose grandfather is buried there.
Sandwiched between Long Leaf, a new residential development to the north, and State Road 50 to the south, the cemetery contains archaeologically significant African-American seashell and folk-art markers, according to the town’s funding application.
Yet it had gone to seed, forgotten for decades, until a survey crew working to widen SR 50 rediscovered it in 2002.
The exact number of dead there is unknown.
No plot map or formal burial list has been found for what was once called the Oakland-Tildenville Colored Cemetery.
Ground-penetrating radar, used to ensure the road project didn’t pave over plots, located more than 100 graves.
The Central Florida Genealogical Society then uncovered dozens of rusted metal markers under the briers and brush, according to a 2004 Orlando Sentinel article which recounted “Saturday-morning safaris” in which volunteers cleared paths to the dead.
Burial estimates at the site vary widely from the low 100’s to more than 500, according to a memo written by Pam Stewart, a town employee who conducted research as “special initiatives” coordinator. Her work accounted for 239 burials from 1917 to 1947.
But she acknowledged in the memo “there are likely far more” than her research counts, mostly prior to 1917.
Race in those years determined your final resting place in town: Oakland Cemetery for whites, this one for Blacks.
Many of the Black dead were impoverished agriculture, domestic or railroad workers and buried in poorly marked graves.
Some had headstones paid for by their employers.
A new Black cemetery nearby, cared for by the Tildenville Missionary Baptist Church, slowly replaced the historic cemetery in the late 1940’s because of the paucity of flat ground in the old cemetery, where burials were complicated by steep slopes and sugar sand.
In the town’s funding pitch, planner Jay Marder described the original as “an important cultural resource.”
He noted some relatives of the dead still live in Oakland.
Located about 20 miles west of Orlando, the town hopes to conduct a professional archaeological and cultural survey of the cemetery, create a perpetual management plan and some day incorporate the histories of its cemeteries into a heritage tour.
State legislators wrote letters of support backing the funding request.
“The grant is essential to preserving history that lies in this cemetery,” wrote state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, D-Orlando.
The restoration idea also won endorsements from regional not-for-profit preservation groups.
Joe Dunn, president of Friends of Lake Apopka, urged the grant committee to help the town with its plan because “the Historic African American Cemetery in Oakland is a key element of our history and an opportunity to speak volumes about our future…”
James Crescitelli, operations director for the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation, pointed out the cemetery holds “anthropological treasures” which document the crucial role Blacks played in the growth of communities on Lake Apopka’s southern shore.
Wade and Ramona Phipps, both of whom have served on the town’s cemetery committee, also lobbied for state funding.
“Seeing the cemetery restored would add a sense of pride while honoring those who are buried there,” they wrote.
The two have an emotional tie to one another through the graveyard.
Phipps found the buried marker for Wade’s grandfather in 2006.
“It was very moving for both of us to uncover this connection,” Phipps recalled.
Like others interred in the historic cemetery, Wade’s grandfather, George, who died in 1918 at age 36, was a casualty of last century’s deadliest pandemic, an influenza outbreak estimated to have killed between 17 million and 50 million worldwide.
To contact Stephen Hudak, email shudak@orlandosentinel.com
