Customer Reviews

Love Cemetery: Unburying the Secret History of Slaves

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have read all of Ms. Galland's books and found life-changing hope there. They create within me renewed commitment to find a place in the world that might bring a bit of healing.
As a Louisiana native who has recently moved to Maine, so much of the material is familiar to me, yet seen from a slightly different lens can be life altering.
The message of unity and love stated and acted out in so many small and large ways is so important right now in our polarized nation.
Many thanks to the author.
Elizabeth Owen

I stumbled into this book seeking information on the Wiley College debate team ("The Great Debaters") as even though the material was brief, it included a great picture of The Varsity. Anyway, the book explores a rich history that is rarely documented but most people have knowledge about, and that is the plight of African-Americans transitioning from Slavery to Reconstruction and forward. Her works weaves an exceptional perspective which makes you wander........while the landscape is East Texas, with all of the small cities, towns, etc. scattered throughout the US, there are perhaps millions "Love Cemeteries." More good news is the work is recent, so unlike similar books on this topic, she makes history come alive in today's timezone.

I had the privilege of going to Love Cemetary with China as a videographer. The day I was there, the state of Texas had brought a device to help detect unmarked graves. That day has stayed fresh in my memory. The atmosphere of the group working on the project was captivating. From the Boy Scouts to the "Old Folks" a sense of doing something that needed doing bound everyone together. China had told me she was writing a book about Love Cemetary, so when I saw it on Amazon I bought it.
Although I grew up in East Texas and think I know some of our Harrison County history, I was amazed at the depth of research China has done. Not only has she captured the past lives of those who endured slavery and Jim Crow, she has brought the people and places to life.
The accounts of meetings and events related to bringing Love Cemetary back into the lives of the families are so descriptive that I felt I was there.
I recommend that anyone interested in the history of the South read this book. It is not long, but it is deep.

Galland books is both moving and thought provoking. An important summer read, for families, students, historians, and social activists grappling with America's relationship with past and current civil rights.

If you've read this book you know everything these folks went through just to gain access to the burial place of their families. Now they've lost access to the cemetery because the land leading to it changed hands. The new owners of the property, Snider Industries, will not allow them to use the logging road to get to Love, so the cemetery has again been swallowed up by the forest.
[...]

Here is a readable, moving, fascinating example of how a "grain of sand" can, indeed, contain the universe. The grain in this case is an out-of-the-way, overgrown, all-but-forgotten graveyard in East Texas. A true storyteller, Galland chronicles the work of a small, inter-racial group (which she convened) to regain access to Love Cemetery and then clear away forty years of enforced neglect to reveal markers and graves of African-Americans all the way back to slave times. In order to truly understand the deepest implications of the story that had claimed her, Galland "unburies" the complex history of racism in the U.S. with particular focus on the years between the end of hostilities in the Civil War and the end of federally protected reconstruction, a time in which hope flourished and black literacy, land-ownership and political access became a reality. But behind the story of Love Cemetery, Galland shows us, lie decades of land-theft, re-disenfranchisement and exclusion that began when federal troops were withdrawn from the South and, along with the slavery that preceded it, cast a long shadow over the present. But most importantly, she shows us that reconciliation is possible if we are able to "choose love when there is reason to hate."

I literally could not put this book down. Don't let the title fool you, it's not just about resurrecting a cemetery, it's about resurrecting your soul. It's a feel good book that everyone needs to read.

I was fortunate to hear an interview with China Galland on NPR about her new book on the Love Cememtery. I was aghast and offended, however, to read the review by Publisher's Weekly, normally a wise and accurate critic. What, I ask, does this following quote mean: "Despite some slack passages, this fresh if not always coherent tale will appeal to women readers eager for an uplifting story. (June)"? The offensive implications are too obvious to waste space spelling out. Who knows whom I can contact about this patronizing review (and reviewer)? I hope this politically incorrect and insensitive critique in no way influences readers against buying this book.

Loves Cemetery is an astonishing book that digs deep into the "archaeology" of race in America-- slavery, emancipation, reconstruction and the long dark night of Jim Crow.
All through the contested fate of an old cemetery and the multiracial effort to honor the dead who live there. As a scholar of the African origins of African-American culture I find Ms Gallands book carries the redemption of history in a way the Shona and Zulu tribes that adopted me, A five star reading? Hell -- give it ten!

Conspiracies of Kindness
Dreaming the End of the World: Apocalypse as a Rite of Passage would completely understand.
Twin from Another Tribe: The Story of Two Shamanic Healers in Africa and North America
Michael Ortiz HillThe Village of the Water Spirits: The Dreams of African Americans

Slowly reading this book. I don't want to miss anything.A friend told me about this book.