Urban renewal leaves lasting unpleasant memories
A recent article in The Roanoke Rambler by Mary Bishop outlines details of how Urban Renewal affected African Americans in the area. One paragraph in particular stuck with me.
Roanoke Vice Mayor Joe Cobb researched how in clearing the way for Interstate 581 in the 1960s, Roanoke exhumed nearly 1,000 bodies from a mostly Black cemetery to a mass grave outside town
The Old Lick Cemetery was just off of Orange Avenue and adjacent to Carver Avenue NE where there were apartment buildings and also homes. The street was closed off after the Interstate was built and my husband’s aunt Vivian Preston Dean and her husband Will Dean lived in a house on Carver down from the Lincoln Terrace apartments.
Old Lick CemeteryPhoto byTrip Advisor Old Lick Cemetery screenshot
Memories from the graveyard
One day when he was a little boy my husband said he and his mother were walking from Northeast before the road was closed off. His mom became annoyed because he was still holding onto his baby bottle and when they passed the Old Lick Cemetery she threw the bottle into the graveyard I laughed about this for years but another story is not so funny.