AARP NC Reflections Past and Actions Present in Geer Cemetery 2/22/21

Summary

Join AARP and attendees from across the U.S for a FREE virtual Black History Month event on February 22 at 1:30pm ET | 12:30pm CT | 11:30am MT | 10:30am PT – AARP membership not required.

The exhibit, In Plain Sight, located in Durham's Geer Cemetery, will challenge us to confront the persistence of long-standing inequity—in death as well as in life. Panels positioned along the old carriage track through Geer Cemetery will illuminate a history too often unseen, that of the graveyard itself as well as the African Americans laid to rest there and the role they played in building Durham.

More than 1,500 men, women, and children were buried in Geer Cemetery from 1877 to 1944, many of them experiencing slavery, rural-to-urban-migration, and the inhumanity of Jim Crow firsthand. For decades after the “separate but equal” doctrine finally moved city leaders to open a public burial ground for African Americans in the late 1920s. Please join us on February 22nd for a special small group tour to honor their lives and hear their stories by registering for this virtual zoom event below. 

This event is presented by AARP NC, Triangle Region and Friends of Geer Cemetery.