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Volunteers to restore another historic Black cemetery Saturday in Lewisville

"I'm proud of my ancestors. I'm really proud of them. They left a legacy for us," said Mae Clark Broadnax.

LEWISVILLE, Texas — Volunteers will converge on another historic Black cemetery on Saturday in Lewisville.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, hundreds of volunteers helped clean up the Champion-Macedonia Cemetery, an L-shaped grove of trees just yards from Interstate 35 and tucked behind the parking lot of a car dealership. 

"Yes, I did not know it was here," said Jackie Shaw, the social justice minister at Westside Baptist Church. 

"I felt guilty when I found it," said Shaw. 

Saturday, the same volunteers will descend on the Fox-Hembry Cemetery, a plot of land hidden between railroad tracks and Valley Ridge Boulevard. The first burial there is believed to have taken place in 1845. 

It remains a burial location of choice for many African American families in North Texas, as does the Champion-Macedonia Cemetery several miles to the south.

WFAA visited the cemetery with Mae Clark Broadnax and her family. When her time comes, she said she will be buried alongside her first husband and near other members of the Fox family, including her great-great grandparents. 

"I'm proud of my ancestors. I'm really proud of them. They left a legacy for us," said Broadnax.

But even at this cemetery, with its 140 years of history, it is not a legacy everyone respects. The entrance to the cemetery, a gravel road, parallels railroad tracks. An illegal dumping site of household furniture, tires, and other debris grew just yards from the entrance. 

Shaw said that after WFAA's first story back on MLK Day, a Houston company volunteered to clean up the debris. It has since been removed. 

Credit: Fox-Hembry Black Historical Cemetery

The cleanup effort at the Fox-Hembry Cemetery in Lewisville will begin Saturday March 19 at 9 a.m. Volunteers are asked to bring their own lawn tools, rakes, chainsaws, and mowers, as they restore the cemetery as much as possible to its original state.

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