LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Greenwood Cemetery is a historic resting place for many African Americans in Louisville, including hundreds of Black military veterans.
Over the years, volunteers have put in countless hours to bring the place back to life. The National Association for Black Veterans (NABVETS) and The Rotary Club of Louisville Suburban organize the volunteers, which range in age and background, from high schoolers to local employees to veterans themselves.
Dexter Bowden headed to Greenwood Cemetery as soon as he heard the news, literally.
“I was just lying in bed this morning watching the news and saw that they were doing it, and since I am a veteran, I figured I’d give back,” Bowden explained.
Bowden gave back by trimming back the weeds and grass growing around headstones at Greenwood cemetery.
“Just, you know, give a little respect to the past,” he told Spectrum News 1.
His giving respect to the past connects to his own past, since there are hundreds of Black military veterans buried at the cemetery, along with non-military members.
“Yeah, they are all over the place. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s like you’ll find a family plot and somebody in the family has been in the military, and then you’ll go, ‘civilian, civilian,’ and then pop up with a private or PFC [Private First Class],” he explained, regarding which military headstones he saw Saturday while sprucing them up.
Bowden served in the Navy from 1984 to 1999.
“I was a radioman on several different ships, USS Germantown, USS Frederick, deployed in the Western Pacific. Then, I had a short duty up in the Seattle area, just a communication specialist,” he said.
His military service was a big reason he wanted to volunteer.
“I mean, I joined the Navy to defend the country so your service shouldn’t stop once you get out,” Bowden said.
While he diligently worked, he told Spectrum News 1 he saw a lot of World War I and II headstones.
“And I just wonder what it was like for them back in the day because this is a historically Black cemetery,” he said. “I know how rough it was. It wasn’t as bad when I was in, you know, with the racism and everything. I can only imagine what it was like only to be able to perform... I think it was stewards and mess cooks back in the day. It was all they were allowed to do, and I was like, ‘I don’t think I could handle that.’ You know, I just thank them for their service and then go to the next one one,” he said.
Mike King is another volunteer, but he is a regular fixture.
“One time you couldn’t drive down this road because they were refrigerators and debris blocking the way. So we’ve got most of the debris cleaned up now, but we still have people that will still slip in here and dump stuff,” he said.
King is a member of the with Rotary Club of Louisville Suburban. He is also a Vietnam War veteran. He said both Rotary and the NABVETS have worked together the past five years to get Greenwood cleaned up. While public figures, such as Mayor Greg Fischer, have come at different points to visit and volunteer, King said this project doesn’t receive any public funding and is run by volunteers.
“The shame of it is that we’ve got multi years of work that still needs to be done to bring it back to what it was like back in the 6’0s and ‘70s when it actually looked like a park in here.”
The goal is to beautify Greenwood Cemetery to honor the dead, but King said the other goal is to make the cemetery enjoyable for the community.
Volunteers don’t have to be veterans to help. Everyone is welcome. The next volunteer event is in August this year. If you are interested in volunteering, reach out to The Rotary of Louisville Suburban at rotarycluboutreach@gmail.com or call (502) 585-5412.