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.