WESTON, Mo. — It wasn’t really a secret, but it also wasn’t something that was widely known either. Roughly 400 slaves and freed African-Americans were buried on a hillside at Weston’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.
“I read that there were 400 of them buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Weston with no markers, so that upset me a little bit,” Carla Sutton said.
So two years ago, Sutton and her husband Bill, began a grassroots campaign to properly honor the souls buried there. The $9,000 needed for a memorial came together quickly.
“We got donations from churches and businesses and individuals,” Sutton said.
Last month, on the holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Sutton and others gathered to unveil and dedicate the impressive monument to the lives nearly forgotten to history.
It was especially powerful for Angela Hagenbach. Her great-great-great-grandparents are buried at that Weston cemetery.
“They’re no longer invisible, it’s like they are valued and that’s very special to me,” Hagenbach said.
