The North Carolina Department of Transportation and North Carolina State University are partnering together to map unmarked burial sites for marginalized groups.
The two-year pilot will focus on identifying and mapping indigenous burial sites, graves of formerly enslaved individuals, as well as historic African American cemeteries all in Edgecombe County.
The $360,000 pilot is partly being funded by the state department of Transportation's Office of Civil Rights.
“We're going to start with a literature review,” said Tunya Smith, NCDOT’s Office of Civil Rights director. “We also have our secondary research team, North Carolina Research engagement group, that will go out and meet with the towns and the county, the local leaders, historians of sort and begin a series of oral history telling.”
According to NCDOT, unmarked burial sites have faced disproportionate risks and vulnerabilities in the state.
“We're concerned about development and changing weather patterns as well as the threat to the existence of these cemeteries in critical areas like Princeville, the oldest historically Black community in the nation [established by free Black slaves],” she said.
For example, more frequent storms such as hurricanes could make it more difficult to identify and preserve unmarked burial sites.
The project will start this summer and is expected to go until the summer of 2026. Smith said moving forward, they plan to create some type of documentation system dedicated to cemeteries and mapping.
