Jul 10, 2009 9:27 pm US/Central
Burr Oak Among First Cemeteries To Welcome Blacks
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
There's another painful side the horror at Burr Oak Cemetery: the legacy of segregation in Chicago that literally extended to the grave.
"This is the only place in the Chicago area you could bury a black person and over the years my whole family is here," Leonard Johnson said.
Veteran funeral director Spencer Leak Sr. lived that history in an era when blacks were limited to a handful of Chicago cemeteries because they were barred elsewhere.
"There was a great concentration of African-Americans in the cemeteries that did provide service and had a history of providing service to African-Americans," Leak said.
In fact, Leak's father, A.R. Leak, led demonstrations to help open the South Side's most historic burial ground, Oak Woods Cemetery, to African-Americans.
The protests came to a head Memorial Day 1964. Hundreds filled the streets outside Oak Woods, which once buried blacks but no longer did after an ownership change.
"We just didn't feel it was right that a cemetery five minutes away from our funeral home wouldn't serve African Americans," Leak said.
The protest succeeded. Oak Woods is now the final resting place for prominent African Americans, such as Judge Eugene Pincham, Mayor Harold Washington and those less well-known, like Wilbert Blakley, reporter Derrick Blakley's father.
Now, Leak says, his funeral home is handling hundreds of calls from distraught clients with loved ones buried at Burr Oak.
"We're grief-stricken ourselves because we were a part of this process," Leak said. "We took their families to Burr Oak Cemetery, thinking those graves would be safe and secure."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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