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douglas9

(4,358 posts)
Tue Jul 26, 2016, 12:56 PM Jul 2016

South Texas Cemetery Association Ends "Whites Only" Policy

A shocking decades-long chapter of race-based segregation after death perpetrated by a South Texas cemetery association that had a long-held "whites only" policy has finally come to an end — courtesy of a federal court order.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, announced Monday that the Normanna Cemetery Association agreed to end its discriminatory policy of excluding Latinos and African Americans from burial in the San Domingo Cemetery.

Normanna is barely a blip on the map. It's a small town of a little more than 100 people half way between San Antonio and Corpus Christi that made larger than life headlines earlier this year when news broke that the cemetery's caretaker, Jimmy Bradford, told local resident Dorothy Barrera that she couldn't bury her husband Pedro in the cemetery because he was Mexican American. Bradford told Dorothy that the Normanna Cemetery Association had already voted against allowing Pedro to rest in the cemetery and that she could "go up the road and bury him with the niggers and Mexicans," according to court documents. There is a separate cemetery in Normanna for minorities. However, Dorothy, who is white, planned to be buried in the San Domingo Cemetery and wanted her husband of more than 40 years laying in rest next to her.

MALDEF, on behalf of the American GI Forum of Texas, Inc., a veterans advocacy organization, sued Bradford and the Normanna Cemetery Association in April. There is at least one U.S. citizen who is Latino and a veteran who lives in Normanna who wouldn't have the option to be buried in the San Domingo Cemetery, according to the federal complaint. Last Friday, the Normanna Cemetery Association agreed to a court order stopping it from denying burials to people on the basis of race.

http://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2016/07/26/south-texas-cemetery-association-ends-whites-only-policy

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South Texas Cemetery Association Ends "Whites Only" Policy (Original Post) douglas9 Jul 2016 OP
The fact that something like this is still even in existence in 2016.... UMTerp01 Jul 2016 #1
Exactly what I thought on reading this... sarae Jul 2016 #3
Um, only after being ordered to do so. nt eppur_se_muova Jul 2016 #2
I think it's safe to assume that Jimmy Bradford is a Republican. radicalliberal Jul 2016 #4
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