Monument honors about 450 Black people buried in unmarked graves in Taylor City Cemetery

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05-02-2025

TAYLOR — On a recent gray day with a cold wind blowing, Ernest Rector looked over a mostly empty plot of land dotted with a few headstones at the Taylor City Cemetery. The 96-year-old pointed to the tombstone of his grandfather, who was freed after being a slave. But Rector can't show where several of his other relatives are buried.
An estimated 450 Black people are buried in unmarked graves in the northwest part of the Taylor City Cemetery that was segregated for African-Americans, said Morgan Cook, who runs the cemetery for the city.
Those in unmarked graves often had temporary markers, including wooden crosses or small metal plaques from funeral homes, said Rector. "They didn't have the money to buy tombstones," he said.
A monument to recognize the African Americans with unmarked graves buried from 1879 to 2023 was erected at the cemetery this fall. A dedication ceremony for it took place Saturday to kick off Black History Month, said Frances Sorrow, the president of the Taylor Conservation and Heritage Association.
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Sorrow said Rector told her about the issue with the unmarked graves about three years ago, and she decided the association needed to do something about it.
"It was the need to have that part of the cemetery recognized as a sacred burial ground because it looked like an empty field," she said. "I felt very strongly that I at least wanted people to know when they step on it, they are stepping on sacred ground."
She said the association paid for the $6,000 monument with help from the Leo Livingston Fund, which was established to help nonprofits in Taylor. The city donated the part of the land in the cemetery where the monument, a black granite slab, is located. The slab is 3 feet high and 4 feet wide. Sorrow said she got support from the City Council for the project, especially Council Member Gerald Anderson.
"It's important for me to give a marker to those that have gone unnoticed and forgotten for decades," said Anderson. "They say the dead do not rest until their grave is marked. Hopefully this will bring their souls some peace. … I feel this marker will also bring some respect and dignity to them as well."
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The top of the granite monument says "Historic African American Burial Section." The monument also says "In loving memory of our citizens whose memorials have been lost to time." The bottom of the slab has a Bible verse from 2 Samuel 1:23: "In life they were loved and admired and in death they were not parted."
There are records that show the names of the people buried in the section for Black people whose markers have been lost to time, said Cook. He is putting the names in a database that people will be able to access online to find their ancestors. He already has developed a database of people buried in marked graves, which is accessible on the city website at taylortx.gov/266/Cemetery. The website also offers tours of the cemetery online.
The cemetery at 1101 E. Fourth St. has about 19,000 people buried across 100 acres, said Cook. The city opened it in 1879, but it already had a few graves from the 1850's, he said.
Rector said his grandfather, Jordan Elliot Rector, whose tombstone is in the cemetery, was born in 1857 as a slave on a plantation in the Manor area. After he was freed, he farmed on land in Jonah before moving to Taylor so his seven children could go to school there, said Rector. Rector said he was 14 when his grandfather died of cancer in 1943.
The tombstone of his uncle, Pleas Monroe Rector, is also at the cemetery, Ernest Rector said. He said Pleas Rector fought in World War I but was gassed in the trenches of France and died as a result of his injuries in 1920.
Ernest Rector said he likes the monument that the Taylor Conservation and Heritage Association erected at the cemetery for the Black people with unmarked graves, but wished it could have had the names of the people on it. Sorrow said there was not enough room on the monument to note them all.
Rector, whose career has included being a manufacturing representative in California, said he worked at various jobs until he was 88. He has two sons.
Rector says he still remembers growing up in Taylor and helping clear the waist-high grass from the African-American part of the Taylor cemetery because it wasn't mowed during segregation. When he dies, Rector said, he doesn't want to be buried at the City Cemetery.
"I'm donating my body to science," he said, "so my family won't have any expense."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Monument honors about 450 Black people in unmarked graves in Taylor