Slave cemetery focus of remembrance and reconciliation

COURTESY FATHER GARRY EDWARDS

A monument at McCoy Slave Cemetery in Huntersville marks the burial site of an unknown number of enslaved and formerly enslaved Africans. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is refurbishing the cemetery for a re-dedication program on June 19.

A Huntersville church is paying respects to enslaved people buried in a long-neglected cemetery.

The congregation at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is observing Juneteenth with an observance of McCoy Slave Cemetery June 19 at 8600 Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road. The program starts at 5:30 p.m.

The burial ground is part of the Albert McCoy estate that was donated to predominantly white St. Mark’s in 1946. No one knows how many people are buried there and analysis by ground-penetrating radar has proved inconclusive.

Father Garry Edwards, St. Mark’s rector, said the program commemorates slaves Jim and his wife Lizzie as well as Charles, who are buried there and listed on a monument erected in 1928; descendants that have been identified and the enslaved mentioned in pre-emancipation documents who might be buried nearby.

“When I got there, I recognized that it was something that was left by the McCoys for the church and the trust, but … because it wasn’t physically on the property of the church … it wasn’t like it was part of the church community,” said Edwards, who was appointed in 2021. “I needed to bring light to it, plus, the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina is doing a whole process of reconciliation. They’ve hired a new person for repatriation and sensitivity a person of color, a priest, to handle it. So, I thought this year was the right time that St. Mark’s play its part in the reconciliation of people of color who have been enslaved.”

Money from the McCoy family trust allows St. Mark’s to provide maintenance for the cemetery, which is a half-mile away from its campus. Once overgrown with brush to the point where the site was unrecognizable from the street, volunteers from the church, local community and the town are working to return the site to its previous state.

“How it looks [now] and how it looks when I got there are two different things,” Edwards said. “When I got here, it was like this thing in the back of a woods with bush around it. But if you drove by the street, you could not tell that there was something behind the behind the trees.

“Now if you drive by you see a graded path and a graded parking space that gives you the thought that why is that there, must be something out there. It creates a curiosity for you to check and when you get into the cemetery itself, there’s a big plaque telling you the history of it. But before when I got there, you could easily drive by and not recognize that there was something of that significance here.”

Edwards hopes the cemetery will shed new light on American history through the lens of the enslaved as well as their enslavers. It’s an opportunity to help people understand that American society has moved forward, but understanding is necessary for reconciliation.

“It tells us that we can’t grow or we can’t move forward unless we understand how we got here – the people that made a difference and how we got here and never to forget,” Edwards said. “They did what I call their burdens or their cross that they did or sacrifices they made to get us to where we are. I wasn’t born here (Edwards is a native of Barbados) but I have been living here since 1978.

“I find that we Americans live in a bubble that just exists here and nothing else in the world really counts because you are considered a superior country that has everything, and everyone wants to come here. Then it makes you feel that there’s nothing else in the world other than us.”

Church members have reached out to descendants of people buried as well as the larger Huntersville community to participate in the project. A few have responded, but Edwards wants to widen the search and raise awareness across the region.

“I think we have found one or two of the relatives that may still be alive of the actual slaves there,” he said. “One of those relatives we are trying to get them to come to the event. What we’re hoping and praying for is it turns on a light for everyone to see because I don’t think the community of Huntersville even knows that this exists.

“You can go onto our church website, and it’ll say we have a slave cemetery. But that's it. I’m now having our website updated to add more significance to it because as the owners of the slaves felt it important to leave a trust, then it’s important for us to carry on a legacy.”

This article has been updated to correct St. Mark’s denomination.

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