Denton City Council Rejects White Only-Cemetery Restriction
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DENTON (AP) — The Denton City Council has renounced an unenforced 1933 deed requirement at a city cemetery that limited burial plots to white people.
Council members Tuesday night unanimously approved an ordinance formally declaring the deed restriction to be illegal, unenforceable and unconscionable.
The race burial restriction was part of the agreement with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows when Denton acquired the property.
City Attorney Anita Burgess says Denton has not enforced the restrictions since a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court ruling outlawing racial covenants on real estate. Burgess also said nonwhite people are buried at the cemetery.
Civil rights activist Willie Hudspeth, who's black, brought the deed issue up last year.
Hudspeth, just before Tuesday's vote, thanked council members and said he wants to be buried at the city cemetery.
Just last year in Tarrant County, members of the Kennedale Historical Society put their efforts behind the preservation of the town's first African American cemetery.
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