The Dispatch
In the Christian faith, the cross symbolizes, love, faith, promise, sacrifice, and charity among other things. For Gloria Cross having this last name was manifest destiny to her identity, her passion, her crusade, and her ultimate destination.
Cross, the long-time social justice activist, pastor, leader, mother, and community champion, died unexpectedly on Sunday after a brief hospitalization.
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Cross, 75, was a Lexington native and was a 1964 graduate of Dunbar High School. She received her LPN degree from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and worked for 20 years as a nurse from the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Salisbury.
The Dispatch
Their names are not known. Their birth dates, nor date of death are known. In fact, no one really knows how many bodies are buried in a mass grave site for slaves in the Lexington City Cemetery.
The Rev. Dr. Arnetta Beverly does know this, however the men and women buried near the single rock and slab marker deserve remembering. We are the descendants of those slaves, she said. I think they need to be recognized because we really are standing on their shoulders.
Beverly s congregation at St. Stephen United Methodist Church will hold the second annual Service of Commemoration for the slaves buried at the site at 2 p.m. Feb. 21. The gravesite is near the North State Street side of the cemetery. The congregation held a commemoration and committal service last year at the cemetery.