A cemetery in Louisiana told the family of a black deputy that he could not be buried there because it was only for white people

A cemetery in Louisiana told the family of a black deputy that he could not be buried there because it was only for white people

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Her husband, Darrell Semien, a sheriff’s deputy for Allen Parish, Louisiana, died on January 24 after being diagnosed with cancer in December, CNP subsidiary KPLC reported.

Semien went to Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin earlier this week to inquire about how her husband should be laid to rest there. But a woman at the cemetery rejected her because her husband was African-American.

“I met the lady out there and she said she could NOT sell me a plot of land because the cemetery is a WHITE CEMBER ONLY,” Semien wrote on Facebook. “She even had paperwork on a clipboard showing me that only white people can be buried there. She stood in front of me and all my kids. Wow what a slap in the face.”

CNN directed Semien for comment.

Creig Vizena, president of the Oaklin Springs Cemetery Association, told CNN’s subsidiary KATC he was ashamed to hear how the Semien family was treated. The woman who turned them down was in her 80s and has since been “relieved of her duties,” he told the Washington Post.

CNN could not reach Vizena for comment.

Vizena told KPLC that he had no knowledge of the language contained in the cemetery’s sales contracts, which date back to the 1950s and contain the phrase ‘the right to bury the remains of white people’. The issue has not been raised before, he said.

“I take full responsibility for that,” Vizena told KPLC. “I have been the president of this council for several years now. I take full responsibility for not reading the ordinances.”

Councilors from the cemetery held an emergency meeting on Thursday to remove the clause from the contract, KPLC reported.

Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin, Louisiana.

Vizena apologized, saying he had offered one of the plots he was offering to the family so Darrell Semien could be buried there. But the damage was done, and they diminished.

Secluded cemeteries have a long history in the US, and remnants of the dark chapters continue to this day.

In 2016, the city of Waco, Texas, ordered that a chain fence be removed from a public cemetery used to separate the White section from the Black section. A similar fence at a cemetery in Mineola, Texas, came down last year.

The Louisiana ACLU appealed to the Oaklin Springs Cemeteries Association to remove any “whites only” references from its statutes, citing the 1948 Supreme Court ruling in Shelley v. Kraemer banning racially connected people in housing.

“It is unscrupulous and unacceptable that the Semien family – or anyone else – should experience such blatant racial discrimination, especially during a time of mourning and grief,” the organization wrote in a letter.

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