It’s been 123 years since the infamous 1898 Wilmington Massacre and the first grave of one of the Black people killed during that tragic day has been discovered.

Joshua Halsey is buried in an unmarked grave in Pine Forest Cemetery off Rankin Street. Members of a non-profit research group called Third Party Project were able to locate his grave after handwritten maps in the Pine Forest registry were digitized.

“When that was digitized, we were able to go through it and start finding some names that were attached to these families,” said John Sullivan of Third Person Project. “Step by step that narrowed down the place where they could have been in the cemetery and then from there we were able to get it from just a meter or so from where the burial is.”

Halsey was just 40 years old when a group of angry white men shot and killed him just outside his home.

You can read the details in an article by Frances Weller published in the WECT web site at: https://www.wect.com/2021/10/12/grave-1898-victim-discovered-funeral-planned-123-years-later/.