By Lev D. Zilbermints
Vandalism and desecration of the Evergreen Cemetery is not limited to Hillside, New Jersey. A spate of vandalisms, all occurring in an Evergreen Cemetery, has occurred in at least five other states. Texas, Maine, Colorado, Virginia and Illinois have seen incidents of vandalism between 2015 – 2021.
“Local Talk” diligently investigated the incidents and unexpectedly found that no other news outlet noticed similarities between cases in six states. Information from the article has been extracted from sources across the country.
In Portland, Maine, more than 150 monuments and gravesites have been toppled or broken at Evergreen Cemetery, Portland Police said.
Bangor, Maine
The Bangor Daily News reported in its April 2, 2021 edition that witnesses reported seeing teenagers running away from the cemetery on March 26, though the nature and extent of the damage indicates it’s likely that the vandalism occurred over several days, police told Bangor Daily News.
“I’m always disheartened by such flagrant disregard for not only others’ property, but for the memories of our community’s loved ones. We have bolstered patrols in the cemeteries, and I would urge anyone with any information to contact the police department, even anonymously, to help us solve this senseless vandalism,” Portland Police Chief Frank Clark told Bangor Daily News.
Austin, Texas
Evergreen Cemetery in east Austin, Texas, was vandalized over the weekend of September 18 – 20, 2020. About 15 headstones were defaced with blue spray paint, KXAN reported. It is believed that the cemetery was targeted because it is a predominately Black cemetery.
KXAN reported that the Black Austin Coalition organized the cleanup and created an online petition. The purpose of the petition is to bring more security cameras and surveillance at the cemetery to prevent future vandalism.
Nook Turner, a representative of the Black Austin Coalition, told KXAN, “This is our ground; this is our soil. We got our blood in the ground here, and we got to protect it. We have to get educated on the value of it, and we have to understand what we need to do moving forward, so things like this will never happen again.”
The Austin Police Department is reportedly investigating the vandalism.
Bloomington, Illinois
Research by “Local Talk” yielded an April 22, 2015 report about the Bloomington Police Department arresting two suspects for doing damage to gravestones at the Evergreen Cemetery. According to the police report, on Saturday, April 18, 2015 at approximately 0815 hours, Bloomington Police responded to Evergreen Cemetery (302 E. Miller Street) regarding damage to numerous headstones. Upon arrival, an officer observed several toppled and damaged headstones as well as damage to a vault located in the cemetery.
Terry L. Ridgeway Jr., age 32, of Bloomington was arrested for Felony Criminal Damage to Property. A 17-year-old juvenile, of Bloomington, was arrested for Felony Criminal Damage to Property. There are reported no other suspects in the case.
Ridgeway was transported to McLean County Jail.
The police report stated that BPD patrol officers and detectives from BPD’s Criminal Investigations Division followed-up information from a concerned citizen regarding the vandalism. The public was thanked for assisting police in catching criminals and holding them accountable for their actions.
Richmond, Virginia
According to the Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Virginia, gravestones in Richmond’s East End and Evergreen cemeteries were vandalized. Maggie L. Walker’s grave was sprayed with a neon green sign of “777”, a hate symbol used by a South African white supremacist group in the 1970s and Nazi Germany in the 1940s, the Anti-Defamation League said.
The Sir Moses Montefiore Cemetery, the East End Cemetery and the Evergreen Cemetery were all founded in the late 19th century to serve marginalized communities, the Times-Dispatch reported.
Evergreen and East End cemeteries are predominantly black. They are the final resting place of many African-American leaders from post-Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras, such as Maggie L. Walker, the first African American woman to charter a bank in the United States; Dr. Richard F. Tancil, who rose from being a slave to being a successful doctor and founder of the Nickel Savings Bank, Times-Dispatch reported.
According its website, the Sir Moses Montefiore Cemetery was founded in 1886 by orthodox Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who fled persecution under the Tsarist regime of Alexander III and Nicholas II. The cemetery is currently managed by a board affiliated with Keneseth Beth Israel in Richmond’s west end.
Vandalism affected Evergreen, East End and Sir Moses Montefiore cemeteries equally. “777” was also painted in the Sir Moses Montefiore Cemetery as well as Evergreen and East End cemeteries.
The Richmond Free Press reported in its August 20, 2020 issue that almost three weeks after the cemeteries were vandalized, a group of Black and Jewish activists helped to restore the gravestones. Volunteers spent time removing graffiti from the gravestones in Black and Jewish cemeteries. As reported by the Richmond Free Press, Queen Richardson, an activist with the One Sound Movement, said that she and her friends wanted “to show that we just didn’t stand for what was going on.”
Colorado Springs, Colorado
According to a pamphlet published by the Evergreen Cemetery Benevolent Society, the Evergreen Cemetery was established shortly after the town was founded in 1871, and deeded to the City of Colorado Springs in 1875 the city founder, General William Jackson Palmer. As such, 220-acre Evergreen Cemetery enjoys a very unique historical tie to the Colorado Springs community. In 1993, Evergreen was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, only the second cemetery in the state to receive such an honor.
The same pamphlet discusses reasons why graves have been vandalized. These are given below.
What do all Evergreen Cemeteries in various states have in common?
Research by “Local Talk” found that most if not all, Evergreen Cemeteries were for Black people. This is the case with New Jersey, Texas, Virginia. According to the 2010 Federal Census, Maine is demographically 94.8% white, 1% Black, 1.1% Asian, 2% of two or more races. Thus, it is not clear that the Evergreen Cemetery in Maine is similar to that of its counterparts in New Jersey, Texas and Virginia. Colorado Springs is 78.8% White, 6.3% Black, 16.1% Latino or Hispanic, 3% Asian, 1% Native American, 5.5% of some other race, 0.3% descended from indigenous Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, and 5.5% from two or more races. Thus, the Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs serves both the Black community and others as well.
Another important point is that some Evergreen Cemeteries in the different states did not have proper security or cameras installed. The cases in New Jersey, Texas and Virginia illustrate this. In some other cases, where cameras were installed, the culprits were caught on video. This helped to catch them later.
Motives for vandalizing
The motives for vandalizing are many and diverse. In some cases, it is hate. The Colorado Springs pamphlet says that another is greed and a desire to make a quick profit. This is done by stealing plaques, veteran medallions, porcelain portraits for quick resale on Craigslist, eBay, yard sales or garden shops. The same holds true for marble and granite vases, cast iron fences and gates.
A third reason is occult rituals made by cults in the dead of the night. Dumb acts by teenagers are a fourth reason. Thus, the vandalizing has no single reason, but rather a plethora of reasons. It all depends on a case-by-case basis, and possibly by geographic region.
For example, in Richmond, Virginia and Austin, Texas, the main motive was hate. Quite possibly someone was retaliating for the removal of Confederate monuments. Also, it could be an expression of anti-Black sentiment by white supremacists.
Portland, Maine, possibly had teenagers doing dumb stuff. In that case, it is possible that more than one person with different reasons was responsible for the vandalism. Theoretically, it could be teenagers on one day and someone else on other days.
Hillside, New Jersey is still not clear what exactly happened there. No animal except a bear has the strength to lift a heavy casket. Gophers, beavers, rats, may dig underground, but how do they open the casket when the lid is shut?
Bloomington, Illinois, managed to catch the culprits thanks to cooperation from the public. This is something that other states investigating vandalism in cemeteries should do. It would make it easier to catch criminals.
