New nonprofit seeks to locate and record Black graves in New Brunswick

Mary Louise McCarthy-Brandt has been tracking down forgotten grave sites of New Brunswick's Black families for years.

She tends to the Wheary Graveyard in Keswick, N.B. and was part of a group that campaigned for a new memorial stone at the Kingsclear Kilburn Community Cemetery. There, more than 50 Black graves that were not relocated when the Mactaquac Dam was built in the 1960s were flooded and are now underwater. 

"For my ancestors, I owe them that dignity to say that their graves were desecrated. And again, I want that for all of the graves," she said.

Now, McCarthy-Brandt is the chairperson of a newly formed group looking to continue that effort on a larger scale.

REACH NB, which stands for "Remembering Each African Cemeteries History in New Brunswick" is partnering with the provincial archives to locate and document forgotten and abandoned grave sites and tell the stories and histories attached to them. 

"Our goal is to have a permanent space for these graves and for the Black history," said McCarthy-Brandt.

McCarthy-Brandt said the nonprofit has two mandates, to work to "eradicate the erasure" of New Brunswick Black history, and to document and find forgotten or abandoned Black grave sites. 

She said the group has already applied for grants to purchase software that will allow it to map New Brunswick, locating historical Black towns, schools, churches, and cemeteries that have been forgotten for too long .

She said the group will collect local stories of each site along the way. 

"For instance...We can plot into St. Andrews and there can be a tab that talks about Edward Mitchell Bannister, who was a very famous Black artist who started in St. Andrews and became very familiar, very popular in the U.S."

McCarthy-Brandt says it's important that this is a Black-led project. 

"Our stories have been told so often, so frequently with a white lens. And we respect and love that our allies are telling our stories, but we want to tell our stories. We are the keepers of the history.

"Oral history is very much a part of the way we were raised in our communities, and we want to share that and and we want to be able to talk about our beautiful Black community," McCarthy-Brandt said.

The provincial archives will store the information collected by REACH NB.