We can’t bury him here because he is black!!!

 

              “IS IT BECAUSE I AM BLACK?”

 

In Jamaica there is an extremely popular song that has been recorded by several artists including Ken Boothe. The song asks the question “Is it because I am black?”

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Darrell Semien was just 55 years old when he died in Louisiana USA, on Sunday, January 24, 2021. His illness was brief but fatal.  

He had lived a good life. He was employed as a crane operator for 20 years before he moved into law enforcement. For the next 15 years Darrell was part of the Reeves Police department as well as the Allen’s Parish Sheriff’s office where he was a Deputy.

On Thursday Darrell’s death became the catalyst for an emergency meeting.

“When the meeting was over it was like a weight lifted off of me,” H. Creig Vizena said on Thursday night January 28, 2021.

Mr. Vizena is Board President for Oaklin Springs Cemetery in southwest Louisiana.

A report in CBS News said that two days earlier, Mr. Vizena was “stunned and ashamed” to learn that the Semien family (a blended multiracial family) had been informed that Darrell could not be buried at the cemetery near Oberlin.

Why?

Because he was African American. He was black.

“It’s horrible” Vizena told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Vizena said the Board members removed the word “white” from a contract stipulation conveying:” the right of burial of the remains of white human beings.”

Darrell’s widow Karla Semien, of Oberlin told CBS, LaFayette Louisiana affiliate KLFY TV that the family had met with the woman who sold plots in the cemetery. She told Karla “we can’t bury him here because he is black.” 

Karla was so upset!  “He was a police officer in the community for 15 years and to be told this as if we were nothing! He was nothing? He put his life on the line for them!” she said.

“I apologized and I am still apologizing,” Vizena said to KLFY.

The offensive wording to which the saleswoman referred was not in the cemetery association’s by-laws. The words were only in sales contracts used since the cemetery was created in the late 1950’s, Vizena said.

Vizena had apologized to the family and offered one of his own plots in the small cemetery. The offer was turned down, however, as the family said they felt that “Semien could not rest easily there.”

Oaklin may not be the only cemetery with such “segregationist holdovers.” Cemetery associations throughout the south and the country should check their by-laws and contracts for such language.

“People please get out and look at your cemetery bylaws, ordinances in your towns, rules in your churches. Get out there and clean it up.”

“We can never change as a country until we wipe all that stuff out.” Vizena told KLFY.

“For Oaklin Springs Cemetery it is a stain that is going to be on our cemetery and our community for a long time,” he said.

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