Thoroughfare cannot breathe. Politics, greed, systematic discriminative loopholes, all have their knees on the neck of Thoroughfare. We cannot breathe as we watch our cemeteries being torn apart. We cannot breathe as we watch our land and history being threatened and taken without pause.
A system that does not lend itself to protect us. A system that does not take into account that the land and cemeteries of slave, freed slave and Native Americans was not initially afforded the opportunity of proper documentation for their properties. That at the time many could not read or write and were not allowed to even learn in many cases. So they worked hard, achieved a level of success on their land within their community, and left their legacy and oral history of land to their descendants.
Historically, situations such as the ones we are facing in Thoroughfare do not end in our favor. It is a situation that is faced throughout our country by many families of color. A pain of loss that is felt over and over by the ancestors of slave, freed slaves and Native Americans.
When will it stop? When will we start moving forward instead of backwards?
The slaves, freed slaves and Native Americans lying in the graves of Thoroughfare are being enslaved once again. By greed and politics. We, their descendants, feel a sense of enslavement by the same greed and politics and indecisiveness.
Every new day is the tomorrow that you promised would bring change. Every day that you do not take whatever steps to implement an immediate halt to all of the encroachment activities in Thoroughfare, we are leaping toward more destruction. Destruction of our cemeteries, land, and history.
Do not drop the ball again as was done with the desecration on the Scott cemetery. Good government should change the world for the better. That’s what you have the opportunity to do now with Thoroughfare. To move forward with respect and decency in preserving all of this historic community that is deserving of all the protections you can and should provide.