Carver Cemetery deserves better care
Published 12:00 am Monday, May 26, 2003
Editor, the News-Herald:
As a taxpayer and a citizen of Suffolk, I feel compelled to write this letter. I think it is a disgrace for the city of Suffolk to deny its citizens of color in this city a cemetery. Carver Memorial Park Cemetery, as named by the late Mrs. Iva Reid Sullivan, was sold to someone who does not care about our citizens who labored here and purchased a space to rest decently in eternity. It is a disgrace to people of my race.
The city does not forget to send us tax bills. It keeps up perpetual care cemeteries for the white race. Maybe our money does not say &uot;In God we trust.&uot; Maybe it is different from citizens of other races.
I went out to Carver on Mother’s Day to pay respects to the members of my family who are buried there, and it was a disgrace sight to see. Weeds were approximately over three or four inches high. I wonder how the City Council members can live with themselves, knowing that the city does not provide services to most of its citizens.
I write this letter to ask all citizens to get in touch with your City Council person and find out why we as Black citizens can’t get what is provided to other citizens of this city.
Please make a call if you are interested in the way that our cemetery should be kept in a decent manner.
Evelyn B. Blount
Suffolk
Editor’s note: This letter is being published again because of mistake in the spelling of the writer’s name. The News-Herald regrets the error.