Some of Huntington's black residents say it's true that blacks were buried in areas other than Section 7, but in many of those cases, they were black servants who were quietly buried near white employers. According to Griffith, segregation was something blacks chose. No one ever steered blacks to Section 7, he said, and no one ever complained. We show them all the plots, but for some reason they choose Section 7. A local funeral director said he knows of no instances in which blacks were forced to bury their dead in Section 7.
People choose where they want to go.
But some African-Americans in Huntington said that wasn't always the case. But that ain't the truth. And even though local blacks have no plans to mount efforts to recognize the cemetery's history, they said they still feel valuable lessons can be learned from its past. That history lies buried beneath the stone grave markers of people like Nellie Proctor, Silas Juels Simms and his wife, Clarissa, whose tombstones tilt heavily near the bramble of trees in a lonely corner of Section 7. They were among the first blacks buried in the section, around 1900.