A ‘Whites-Only’ Cemetery Is Very Sorry for Denying a Black Man’s Burial

The owner of a Louisiana cemetery has apologized for denying the request that a local sheriff’s deputy be buried on the cemetery grounds under a “whites only” policy.

After Darrell Semien died of cancer last Sunday, his wife, Karla Semien, asked Oaklin Springs Cemetery about burying her husband there per one of his dying wishes, according to KPLC News. She said one of his last requests was to be buried on the grounds because it was close to home. 

“It was in their bylaws that the cemetery was ‘whites only,’” the widow told KPLC. “I just kinda looked at her, and she said, ‘There’s no coloreds allowed.’” 

The small cemetery, located in Oberlin, Louisiana, has less than one hectare of land, according to the AP.  It’s —a town with a population of fewer than 2,000 people. 

The cemetery’s sales contracts stated, “the right of burial of the remains of white human beings,” the AP reported. The documents were created in the 1950s, and until now, no one thought to revisit them because “it never came up,” said the president of the Oaklin Springs Cemetery Association, Creig Vizena. 

Semien’s daughter, Kimberly Curly, said the employee showed no remorse and that it added to the family’s grief, KPLC reported. 

“She even had paperwork on a clipboard showing me that only white human beings can be buried there,” Karla Semien wrote in a Facebook post. “She stood in front of me and all my kids —wow what a slap in the face.”

“Everybody dies,” Curly said to the local news outlet. “They bleed the same. You die. You’re the same color. Death has no color, so why should he be refused?”

After he heard about the incident, the cemetery gatekeeper called an emergency association meeting, and the association removed the word “white” from the sales contracts. The woman who denied Semien’s grave was related to Vizena, and he said she was “relieved of her duties,” according to the AP. 

Vizena wanted to do more, so he offered the family one of his personal grave plots, the AP reported.

“I even offered them—I can’t sell you one, but I can give you one of mine,” Vizena told KPLC. “That’s how strongly I feel about fixing it!”

Vizena has encouraged other cemeteries in the area to revisit their bylaws, because he said he thinks Oaklin Springs can’t be the only one with similar language in the contract, according to the AP.  

“It’s a stain that’s going to be on our cemetery and our community for a long time,” Vizena said, according to the AP. 

But he’s excited about the change being made.  

Semien’s family refused Vizena’s offer for a free grave plot, saying nothing will change the fact that their family member was denied burial. 

“I just can’t believe in 2021 in Oberlin, Louisiana this is happening,” Karla Semien said in her Facebook post.