Removing the Jim Crow fence

Marker at the 9th Street entrance to Pinewood Cemetery

Elmwood Cemetery’s curbed loop road, on left side of picture, came close to Pinewood Cemetery’s uncurbed loop road, on right. Between them was a fence until African Americans led by Fred Alexander agitated publicly to remove the fence.

March 18, 2013

This incident in Charlotte’s history has been chronicled elsewhere. But it may be a reminder that, in William Faulkner’s original words in “Requiem for a Nun”:

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Or in presidential candidate Barack Obama’s paraphrase in his 2008 “A More Perfect Union” speech, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.”

– From the Survey and Research Report on Elmwood/Pinewood Cemetery from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission; www.cmhpf.org/S&Rs%20Alphabetical%20Order/Surveys&relmwood.htm

Elsewhere on the Landmarks Commission site are these words.

The Fred Alexander papers are in the UNCC Library’s Special Collections. See particularly Box 14 Folder 29 on the Elmwood/Pinewood cemetery.