Penfield African American Cemetery Restoration

09/25/2025

🎬 Acts of Reparation & Family History Day
A weekend of truth-telling, remembrance, and healing.
📍 Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church
🗓️ Sept 26–27, 2025

Join us Friday evening for a powerful screening of the acclaimed documentary Acts of Reparation 🎥 ⏰ Sept 26 | 7:00 PM

Then return Saturday for Family History Day—an immersive, all-day experience exploring ancestral research, storytelling, and historical repair. ⏰ Sept 27 | 9:00 AM–6:00 PM

🆓 Both events are free and open to the public
Let’s honor the past and shape a more just future.
🔗 Details/Registration: https://www.atlpcusa.org/events/acts-of-reparation-family-history-day

02/04/2025

Thanks again to everyone who joined us for our cleanup day on February 1st! We did debris pickup, trimmed some lower limbs, moved a huge log set aside for a memorial project, and started the GPS flagging process. Stay tuned for the next scheduled cleanup day!

10/04/2024

Just a reminder that our cleanup day tomorrow, Oct 5, is from 2-6pm. We’ll be having a surprise unveiling to kick off the work!

Many folks will be at the film screening and lunch from 10-2. The event is sold out, but tickets may open up. Also, tickets are free, do not pay anyone for them!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/acts-of-reparation-documentary-film-screening-filmmaker-qa-tickets-952237898187

Premiere screening of Acts of Reparation. Tickets are FREE!

09/05/2024

We hope you can join us on October 5th for this unique opportunity! Attend a free film screening, enjoy lunch and genealogy workshops with the community, and then join us to continue cleaning up the Penfield African American Cemetery. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/acts-of-reparation-documentary-film-screening-filmmaker-qa-tickets-952237898187

Acts of Reparation is a documentary film by Selina Lewis Davidson and Macky Alston: "Two friends – one Black, one white – travel South to their ancestral lands to explore what reparations means to them. From kitchen tables to porches, lost cemeteries to discovered diaries, their journeys lead to unexpected opportunities that transform their friendship, families and communities. Together they reclaim and reckon with their roots."

08/06/2024

We may still be on summer hiatus, but the work continues! This week, Spencer W. Roberts will be presenting a poster about our project at Digital Humanities 2024 at George Mason University. You can check out the program here: https://dh2024.adho.org

Thanks to all the volunteers and supporters who continue to make this project possible! Keep an eye out for the next cleanup date announcement!

05/10/2024

We're delighted to share that Grant Blankenship from Georgia Public Broadcasting has produced a wonderful update on our project, including interviews with some of our volunteers. Read or listen on the GPB website!

A relatively newly remembered burial ground yields more questions than answers as universities piece together missing links in the history of Georgia’s enslaved populations.

04/22/2024

Thank you to everyone who came out on Saturday to help with our monthly cleanup! We cleared junk trees, cut up fallen trees, cleaned markers, and even uncovered a hidden head stone. Stay tuned for our May cleanup day announcement.

03/19/2024

Our March 16th cleanup day was a huge success thanks to our volunteers' hard work! We moved three truckloads of wood out of the cemetery, at least 4000lbs!

In the process, we discovered two partial head stones buried under a debris pile, hidden for many years. In another area, we found a buried foot stone and the head stone of Fannie Story, which had been broken into pieces by a falling tree.