Chapel Hill is getting a second chance at honoring the memory of 361 slaves and free people of color that are known to be buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.

In a meeting held Tuesday night, members of the town council and local community members discussed early plans for a September ceremony that could feature community leaders, speeches and music.

“It’s the mission of the NAACP to actually pass the traditions of African Americans in this community to the younger generations,” said local NAACP member Jesse Gibson. “One of the ways of doing that is to make sure they understand the history.”

A commemorative marker was installed in February, but was taken down after community members criticized the wording of the marker, which read “Here Rest in Honored Glory 361 American Persons of Color Known But to God.”

Allen Buansi explained why he thought they should change the wording of the marker.

“The people that were buried there, we don’t know they were all African American,” he said. “There were Native Americans around and other people of color.”

Community members were also upset because there was no ceremony celebrating the marker.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP president Robert Campbell said he thinks the ceremony the town is planning will be a learning experience, especially for local students.

“When there were some games here at UNC, people actually parked on the graveyard,” he said. “The crew went out to clean up, and they saw these odd shaped rocks and they decided they would take all the rocks away, but they were actually markers of graves.”

The committee will meet again May 15 to try to narrow down the options for the wording on the new marker.

Campbell said he was happy with the way the meeting turned out Tuesday and hopes for more community input moving forward.

“We’ll try to get more people to voice their opinion, at least about the service,” Campbell said. “I think we’ve got enough information to shape some wording on the marker itself, so I think we’re in a good place.”

Mayor Pam Hemminger said the tentative timeline has the town council formally hearing about the project plans in June.

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