Contact: Tiffany King For Immediate Release
Phone: (479) 530-7207
email: [email protected]
New Documentary Film Highlights African American Cemetery
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Filmmakers John Cooper and Tiffany King announce the release of their first documentary film, Oak Cemetery: A Forgotten Place. The film tells the story of the African American cemetery in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which was established in 1867 as the only place black resident were allowed to be buried.
The filmmakers gathered stories from several older African American residents who lived through segregation and integration to tell the history of the cemetery, as well as the challenges facing the cemetery in the future. Only a small group of citizens maintains the cemetery, it receives no federal funding and it is running out of burial space.
The film includes the story of Fayetteville’s first African American police officer, Lem McPherson. He was hired in the 1920s and only had the authority to patrol the black section of town. Officer McPherson was killed in the line of duty in 1928 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Oak Cemetery. Oak Cemetery: A Forgotten Place documents how this piece of forgotten history was recently uncovered.
For more information, visit www.oakcemetery.weebly.com.
Phone: (479) 530-7207
email: [email protected]
New Documentary Film Highlights African American Cemetery
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Filmmakers John Cooper and Tiffany King announce the release of their first documentary film, Oak Cemetery: A Forgotten Place. The film tells the story of the African American cemetery in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which was established in 1867 as the only place black resident were allowed to be buried.
The filmmakers gathered stories from several older African American residents who lived through segregation and integration to tell the history of the cemetery, as well as the challenges facing the cemetery in the future. Only a small group of citizens maintains the cemetery, it receives no federal funding and it is running out of burial space.
The film includes the story of Fayetteville’s first African American police officer, Lem McPherson. He was hired in the 1920s and only had the authority to patrol the black section of town. Officer McPherson was killed in the line of duty in 1928 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Oak Cemetery. Oak Cemetery: A Forgotten Place documents how this piece of forgotten history was recently uncovered.
For more information, visit www.oakcemetery.weebly.com.