Frank Washington – 022322 Citizen Press Conference at QTS Data Centers offices,
9301 Freedom Center Dr., Manassas, VA
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BIO: Frank Washington was raised in a small town called Thoroughfare within Prince William County. A town founded by freed slaves and Native Americans.
He is an active member of the Oakrum Baptist church in Thoroughfare, Chairman of the Trustee Board, Director of the youth department, and soloist for Sunday services.
Frank has also become a dedicated activist in fighting for the preservation of slave, freed slave and Native American cemeteries, including the history and legacy that surrounds them.
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There is a deep lack of awareness that exists for what is truly in jeopardy if the Digital Gateway proceeds. A project being pushed to simply fulfill the financial endeavors of a select few. This first proposal to acquire 800 acres for data center use would open the door to devastation of the entire Historic Pageland area. This would potentially wipe out a complete history of freed slave settlements, cemeteries and graves.
Once again, I find myself speaking for those who no longer have a voice to speak for themselves. The voices of the enslaved, freed slave and Native Americans that are connected to Thoroughfare and resting in graves scattered throughout the Pageland area. There is overwhelming evidence that speaks to this fact based on the communities that existed here.
Pageland is an area where freed slaves built homes and settled. Settlements known as Thornton which existed on Pageland road and the Marble Hill/Flat Iron Corner settlement that existed in the area of Aldie Rd., Marble Hill Lane, and Sudley Rd. adjacent to and through Pageland. These two communities were once linked by a road trace known as Old Aldie Rd.
They are also in the immediate vicinity of the Battlefield Park. It is important for us to begin to understand the relationship between the Battlefield and the two settlement areas and their inhabitants. The area around Marble Hill/Flat Iron is approximately 0.931 miles from the border of the Battlefield. The area around the Thornton settlement on Pageland is approximately 1.675 miles from the Manassas Battlefield.
These areas of post Civil War African American communities in such close proximity to a National Battlefield Park present a unique rural and cultural landscape that tells a story of one of the most significant periods in American History: The Civil War, Reconstruction and the formation of African American Communities that developed during the post-Civil War Era.
A data center in the proposed area or anywhere throughout the Pageland area would dissolve this connection and cultural landscape. It is an imminent threat to preserving and honoring the importance of African American culture.
This land was also part of the Pittsylvania Plantation. A plantation that was owned by members of the same Carter family that owned the Cloverland Plantation in Thoroughfare. This land, which is in the path of the current proposal, is where many families of color built communities during the reconstruction period. Census records verify this land and an area where a Church, Mt. Calvary, has stood since the 1800’s. This church was the heart of the surrounding communities, just as Oakrum Baptist Church was and is for my Thoroughfare family and community.
The Thornton Elliott school once stood on the corner of Thornton Lane and Pageland. This is where many people of color had the opportunity to learn to read and write freely for the first time in their lives.
This Thornton Settlement and surrounding area of Pageland was considered a forsaken land by the Pittsylvania Plantation owners. So it was allocated to freed slave who first rented in the area and then bought. Just as with Thoroughfare, they built thriving communities throughout. The Thornton school no longer stands but is now marked by a cluster of trees. Trees that are physically rooted in the foundation and history of where the school once stood. The free voices and laughter of innocent children. The dreams and hopes of the once enslaved for the prosperity of those children still abide within the foundation of the Thornton school. Those trees now hold the history and the stories of those who were afforded so little in life but rose to achieve much despite the hardships they continued to face following slavery. Those trees now rooted in the foundation of that school house speak to survival, perseverance and overcoming. Despite the struggle and society trying to keep them enslaved at the time, these communities contributed greatly to the building of Prince William County. A vital part of our County history. A vital part of our American history.
This community is the home place of Jennie Dean. She played an important role in contributing to our collective history. She was born a slave in the Pageland area. Her family had direct ties to the area before the war when she and her family were enslaved, during the war when she and her family were still enslaved, and after the war when she and her family were finally freed. They settled and built their home on the very land that once held them captive but now offered them freedom. Her dream and education was nurtured right here. In short, she had a dream to build an Industrial school where children of color could learn a trade to better their lives. Despite much opposition, she succeeded and the Manassas Industrial School was built and it thrived. Many years later it was turned into a middle school and then an elementary school. The school still stands. Jennie Dean and her family are buried at the Mt. Calvary church.
This type of historical knowledge of an area they wish to destroy in the name of perceived progress is of vital importance. But it is only touching the surface of this area’s history. Especially when it comes to the cemeteries and gravesites. I have seen minimal acknowledgement of cemeteries or scattered graves in proposals submitted supporting the sale of properties. The Pageland area warrants more than just a casual mention of cemeteries or graves.
The Pittsylvania Plantation had a significant enslaved population. The gravesites of the enslaved are historically scattered at the edges of fields, along fence lines and sometimes in designated areas marked by a knoll or rings of trees. We know there are recorded and unrecorded cemeteries and graves within the Pageland area. There is a mapped and recorded graveyard labeled, “Slave Graveyard” which has a connecting pathway, no longer motorable, that connected the settlements. This can be found on Eugene Scheel’s ‘African American Heritage Map of Prince William County.’ There are several other mapped graveyards in the near vicinity of the slave graveyard. Another map that acknowledges the significance and ties an important piece of documentation to the historic relevance of African American households and cemeteries is the Maneuver Grounds map from 1904.
The Pittsylvania Plantation and the reconstruction period communities in this area also lend themselves to unmarked and undocumented graves of the enslaved and the free who were not afforded documentation of their burial sites on the Hallowed Grounds of the Pageland area. But these graves exist, just as we have found they exist in Thoroughfare.
The Sudley Methodist Church, that sits adjacent to the Pageland area, was a field hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers. Where do you think those soldiers who died in that hospital were laid to rest? History tells us that these bodies are most likely scattered among graves within the landscape of Pageland. This is what we know is true for Thoroughfare.
I wish I had time to share all the documentation, but census records can be researched and they do confirm the high concentration of people of color at the historic reconstruction settlements of Thornton and Marble Hill/FlatIron. The readily available maps and documents open the door to many cemeteries in the area.
Based on what I have experienced and learned with our struggles in Thoroughfare, we cannot trust that a review process of gravesites and cemeteries will be fair and equitable as they push for changing this rural Hallowed Ground of the Rural Crescent to industrial. A destructive change that is unwarranted, except that it will put possibly millions of dollars in the pockets of a select few.
I know first-hand what disasters can be in store when a decision is supposedly made in the name of progress. I saw it clearly as I watched one of my Thoroughfare family cemeteries of over 75 graves of slave, freed slave and Native Americans completely bulldozed without pause. Without accountability, without repercussions, without restoration. Without compassion or empathy for my family or community. This was a documented and recorded cemetery. It has now been desecrated 3 times within the last year. There are other areas within Thoroughfare where cemeteries and graves have been desecrated. Additional graves that have been found, but ignored, as they are brought to light. Ignored because they get in the way of financial gain for a select few.
Atrocities continue despite some seemingly progressive steps forward. Which we are thankful for, but those steps do not erase the pain or devastating loss we have endured.
Here I stand now, as the same type of onslaught of greed, power and privilege threaten Pageland and its history. A very real threat to the areas’ Historic Freed Slave Settlements, graves and cemeteries. People intent on pushing forward a destructive proposal for personal gain that would trample on the resting places of those who have already suffered so much in life. Given no dignity, no value, and no respect. Just as they were treated in life. No peace or freedom even in death.
As I stated earlier a mere mention of cemeteries does not encompass the full historical significance or value of what is in jeopardy.
I have heard some supporters of this proposal and for a Digital Gateway through Pageland refer to the Battlefield as a place that only glorifies the Confederacy and racism. So why should we be concerned with it? They are trying to make the history of the Battlefield less significant, because their desire to push selling their property for a data center in the Pageland area would definitely affect the Battlefield.
Do not buy into this attempt to use the race card. Which I find ironic. The Battlefield is about our history, it is not about race. Knowledge and understanding our history is not glorifying it. The bodies of Union soldiers, both black and white, were also scattered among the Battlefield. The blood of both sides stained the landscape. Their sacrifice is honored at that Battlefield. This attempt, by some, to paint the Battlefield as some glorification of the Confederacy is not being done because of any empathy or great concern for the pain or suffering of people of color. They are using the history of suffering to further their personal agenda.
The Confederacy is not to blame for threats we face today. It was not the Confederacy in this present day and time that bulldozed our cemeteries, history and ancestors in Thoroughfare. It was not the Confederacy that blocked our entrance to our ancestors’ resting in another cemetery. It was not the Confederacy that threatened to dig up my ancestors. It was the same mentality and physical presence of Power, Privilege and Greed that now threatens the slave, freed slave and reconstruction history, graves, cemeteries and communities of the Pageland area.
If I were asked to make a choice, I see more elements of racism and disregard in these current destructive acts and proposals than I do in any feelings I currently have regarding the history of the Battlefield.
For me this is not about race. It is about fighting to protect the history and freedoms of the dead. My ancestors. Your ancestors. Our ancestors. Their freedom to rest in peace in their Hallowed Ground. Undisturbed by data centers, widening roads, and powerlines.
It is about our collective history.
NO, I do not know the names of all the dead in the graves scattered among the properties and cemeteries of Pageland or Thoroughfare, as I was sarcastically asked just a few days ago regarding Thoroughfare.
But, if a name is needed, for some of those that say who’s to say what’s the importance of these people’s lives were or if they even existed, I can give you a few. This comes from a will, of the Plantation of Cloverland, who was also the owner of the Pittsylvania Plantation on Pageland. Some of the names are:
John $350
Jane $225
Jerry $75
Matt $350
Old Judy “worth nothing”
Closon $400
Sarah $50
David $50
We are still putting a price on these very same people. This list goes on and on within this will.
These people and the lives that we are trying to protect in Pageland did exist, and their memory is worth saving, their history is worth saving.
This is not my history, it is not just your history, it is our history. And we have to take steps to protect it. Because they continually try to find a way to have us point fingers at each other and place blame.
I do not blame anyone here today for anything that happened over 200 years ago. We were not there. We were not a part of that. But we are a part of the things that need to change today.
And the only way they can change is if we stand together. Regardless of your color, race, religion, national background – whatever it is – we have to stand together.
This area is important. And if we do not stand together, they will continue to push forth to take what is our history that should be preserved. For not just me, not just for you, but for our children and our ancestors.