Black graves being moved to make way for Virginia industrial park draw mix of emotions

DANVILLE, Va. — A decision to move the remains of hundreds African American tenant farmers from a former Virginia tobacco plantation to a dedicated burial ground has elicited a range of emotions among the sharecroppers’ descendants.
Some worry about the implications of disturbing the graves of people who were exploited and enslaved. Others hope the remains can be identified and reburied with more respect than they were afforded in life.
The mostly unidentified remains are being moved from a site that had been part of one of the nation’s largest slave-owning operations, to make way for an industrial park.
When they were buried they weren’t considered fully human, but now they are “patriots who are coming out of their graves with equal rights in 2025,” one descendant, Cedric Hairston, said.

Ben Finley/AP