By Allison Kadlubar, Bailee Hoggatt and Ezekiel Robinson LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE – Jessica Tilson spent many Sunday mornings in the early 1980s playing outside with her white friends under the shady oak trees in front of the fleur-de-lis stained glass windows of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Maringouin. But as soon as the church bells rang, they parted.
“When it was time to go into the church, it was time to split up,” Tilson said.
The church has a main entrance with double doors, but members typically enter through separate doors on the sides of the building – to the left for Black members, to the right for white members. Once inside, Black and white members sit on opposite sides of the sanctuary to worship in front of one altar – even though Tilson said the church abandoned formal segregation in the 1980s.
Segregated cemeteries still âhauntâ Louisiana
Segregated cemeteries still haunt Louisiana By Allison Kadlubar, Bailee Hoggatt and Ezekiel Robinson | May 10, 2021 at 10:33 AM CDT - Updated May 11 at 9:25 AM
BATON ROUGE (WVUE) - Jessica Tilson spent many Sunday mornings in the early 1980s playing outside with her white friends under the shady oak trees in front of the fleur-de-lis stained glass windows of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Maringouin. But as soon as the church bells rang, they parted.
âWhen it was time to go into the church, it was time to split up,â Tilson said.
The church has a main entrance with double doors, but members typically enter through separate doors on the sides of the building â to the left for Black members, to the right for white members. Once inside, Black and white members sit on opposite sides of the sanctuary to worship in front of one altar â even though Tilson said the church abandoned formal segregatio
A Louisiana cemetery told the family of a Black deputy he couldn't be buried there because it was only for White people kesq.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kesq.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Jan 30, 2021 / 04:39 PM EST
(CNN) When Karla Semien went to a cemetery to pick out a plot where her late husband would be buried, it was as if she’d stepped back into the 1950s.
Her husband Darrell Semien, a sheriff’s deputy for Allen Parish, Louisiana, died on Jan. 24 after being diagnosed with cancer in December, CNN affiliate KPLC reported.
Semien went to Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin earlier this week to inquire about laying her husband to rest there. But a woman at the cemetery turned her away because her husband was African American.
“I met with the lady out there and she said she could NOT sell me a plot because the cemetery is a WHITES ONLY cemetery,” Semien wrote on Facebook. “She even had paperwork on a clipboard showing me that only white human beings can be buried there. She stood in front of me and all my kids. Wow what a slap in the face.”
Deputy Darrell Semien (Allen Parish Sheriff s Facebook) (Allen Parish Sheriff s Facebook) She had this paperwork in her hand that she said was drawn up 70-plus years ago, Shayla told news station KATC. If we really wanted to have him buried here, we would have to get board approval because he was a colored man.
His family said they were shocked not only that the discriminatory rule was part of the cemetery’s contract, but also by how the woman handled the situation. [She said] just blatantly, with no remorse, ‘I can’t sell you a plot for your husband,’ another one of Darrell’s daughters, Kimberly Curly, told the news station.
Louisiana family denied burial plot in âwhites onlyâ cemetery
The graveyard has since changed its by-laws
Oberlin cemetery is whites only By Jennifer Lott | January 27, 2021 at 9:15 PM CST - Updated January 31 at 4:02 PM
OBERLIN, La. (KPLC) - When the wife of a deceased Allen Parish Sheriffâs Office deputy went to meet with a representative of a cemetery, she was shocked to hear they wouldnât let her husband be buried there.
As it turns out, Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin only allowed certain races to be buried there.
Since then, the cemetery board has changed the by-laws.
Deputy Darrell Semien was diagnosed with cancer in December. In the last month and 9 days of his life, Semien talked with his family about burial plans, telling them he wanted to be laid to rest at Oaklin Springs Cemetery because it was close to home.