My Mother, Father, Grandmother, Grandfather, Uncle and Jack an uncle who died as an infant are buried there. It is right beside the Confederate section only separated by a pathway which they do sell sometimes and since our plot was full, I asked, though they declined. Strange, many years ago I was there by myself visiting my parents and kin just before they closed the gates and I felt a stillness come over me and thought that I should just lay down beside my mother's grave and spend the night.
Vandals spray-painted anti-racist graffiti on nine monuments inside Raleigh’s Historic Oakwood Cemetery, mostly damaging the graves of high-ranking officers in the Confederate Army but also defacing the stone of North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock, whose racial views in the early 1900s have found increasing criticism.
The attack caused roughly $20,000 in damage on Wednesday night and is thought to be the first of its kind on private property, said Robin Simonton, executive director at Oakwood. Cemetery officials reported the crime to Raleigh police during the weekend, hoping to spare further destruction during the holidays.
“Cowardly acts like this, under cover of darkness, late at night, aren’t perpetrated by decent and thoughtful citizens,” Simonton said. “In these modern times, conversations on divisive issues should be held in person. Midnight assassinations don’t accomplish anything positive. Mature, non-emotional dialogue more often leads to agreement, or at least compromise.”
Damage at the cemetery comes in the wake of a series of similar high-profile incidents that reflect continued, heated controversy over the Civil War, 150 years after its formal conclusion.
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