Cumberland County family working to stop illegal dumping at historic Black gravesite

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Cumberland County family is demanding action against illegal dumping on their historic family cemetery where both veterans and Black people born during slavery are buried.

Ken Slankard said it breaks his heart that people are trespassing and disrespecting the sacred burial ground by driving onto the property and unloading mounds of trash nearby. His wife is a member of the Hodges family.

"Illegal dumping and littering throughout is causing problems because the trash ends up in the fields, the trash ends up in the cemetery," Slankard said.

"They can take whatever trash they want, dump it back there, and no one will see them," Cheri Leach said, also a Hodges family member.

The family said they're among the first Black landowners in Cumberland County. Black people born during slavery had already been buried there when the Hodges acquired it in the 1910s, and the family has been burying their family members there ever since. There are also several veterans buried in the cemetery going back to World War I.

Leach said some dumpers may be oblivious to the graveyard but others have long known that it's there.

"Some people don't care that there's a graveyard there...It's disgusting," she said.

The family says people dump there partly to avoid paying at the county dump. Slankard and the Hodges say they're calling on Cumberland County to stop people from illegally dumping and to invest in more sanitation sites.

"The county commissioners are more engaged with what's going on in Fayetteville instead of taking care of the entire county," Slankard said. "They need to refocus on what's important and that is your constituents."

He said he's bringing this issue to the county commissioners meeting on Monday. The Hodges also said the family is working on getting their gravesite historically recognized.

The Cumberland County Commissioners have not made an official response at this time.