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Pleasant Shade Cemetery stewards urge more help after decades of neglect
Summary
Stewards of Pleasant Shade Cemetery told the council the site dates to 1888, spans roughly 17–20 acres, and holds thousands of burials; they described volunteer research identifying more than 400 veterans and said they secured a commercial mower through a grant but need ongoing help from the community.
At the same council meeting, council members presented a plaque to stewards of Pleasant Shade Cemetery and heard from community members about the site's scale and needs. Brian Mackenzie introduced Pleasant Shade as an historic African American cemetery adopted by the East End Neighborhood Association in 2011–2012, and asked Reverend Artestine Lang to accept recognition.
Mackenzie said the cemetery "dates back to 1888 and is the final resting place for some 15,000 individuals," noting the East End Neighborhood Association's role in recent cleanups. Reverend Artestine Lang and a colleague described the scale of the work, the difficulty of maintaining 17–20 acres and the volunteer research underway to recover names.
"It's over 400 at this count, and we have, quite a long ways to go," Reverend Lang said of identified veterans buried at Pleasant Shade. She and other stewards thanked community partners, including Mary Kalia Selchak of Lehigh Hall Depot, who wrote a grant that secured a commercial mower from the city of Newport News to help maintain the large site.
Speakers asked the council and community to continue supporting cleanups, research, and fundraising to repair headstones and mark unlocated veteran graves. No formal city action to assume care of privately owned cemeteries was proposed during the presentation.
