Clemson professor seeks to tell stories of 604 people buried in unmarked graves on campus

Although she's dedicated her life's work to researching Black history at Clemson University, Dr. Rhondda Thomas wants you to know she's not a historian. She's a storyteller. 

Each story she discovers -- whether it's infant Katie, an enslaved girl who was listed on the deed of the plantation when it was sold to John C. Calhoun's son in 1854 or Jimmie Gunn, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based musician who was invited to perform on Clemson's all-white campus in the 1930s -- is vitally important, the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature said. 

Thomas tells these stories through Call My Name, a non-profit research project (and now a book) that seeks to tell the public about the Black people who helped Clemson University and the land it sits on. 

"We strive to give every person that we identify a story... because together, they create a beautiful mosaic of history that is painful. It has love, it has joy, it has horror. It has all of the human emotions that are associated with being on this planet," Thomas said. 

More:Clemson finds 600 unmarked graves on campus. But who were they? Researchers race to find out

For months, Thomas has been working to identify and tell the stories of the 604 people buried in unmarked graves at Woodland Cemetery, Clemson's on-campus graveyard that sits under the shadow of Memorial Stadium.

But without remains -- the red clay in which they are buried is acidic enough to dissolve bone -- and without a lot of documentation, Thomas is turning to the surrounding communities to help connect modern descendants and residents with the stories buried in the clay. 

Thomas has formed a community outreach panel, which will begin work this month to connect the history, stories, and research at Woodland to communities in Pendleton, Clemson, Central, and Seneca. 

The panel's immediate goal is education, to shine a light on who is buried among the white faculty and alumni at Woodland, which researchers believe include enslaved Africans, sharecroppers, convict laborers and domestic workers who lived and worked in Clemson up until the cemetery was formally dedicated in the 1920s, Thomas said.

While Thomas doesn't know if they will be able to identify any of the people buried across the steep hills making up the cemetery, she knows many families in the area have ancestral ties to Fort Hill Plantation and the many ways the land was used after it was sold. 

"Those graves have been there for a long time. So we didn't discover them. They were recovered," Thomas said. The university used ground-penetrating radar to determine the location of 604 graves, which they announced in October. 

And now that the final resting places are known, the work to tell their stories begins. 

"If (the public) believes they have family members that are buried on Cemetery Hill, please reach out to us, we want to talk to them," Thomas said. 

Want to get in touch with Dr. Thomas? Email afamburials@clemson.edu or visit https://www.clemson.edu/about/history/woodland-cemetery/ for more information.

Telling the complete history

And after Clemson's racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd's death this May, Thomas said the importance of honoring Black history has never been more important. 

"History gives us an opportunity to learn about the past. And honor the past as we make decisions on how to live in the present and in the future. And because African Americans were so integral to the development of our country, and at Clemson University, it's a history that needs to be front and center," Thomas said. 

Since Floyd's death, Clemson University trustees voted to remove two names of men known for racism, Calhoun and Benjamin Tillman. Calhoun was a slave owner and secessionist whose plantation became Clemson University. Benjamin "Pitchfork" Tillman was a governor and white supremacist whose name adorned Clemson's most iconic building. 

President Jim Clements established a task force on racial equity. Clemson football players organized a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Hundreds of students have rallied together to demand more inclusive support for Black students. 

But through the activism and change of today, Thomas said the past can't be ignored. Especially for Black people, who are reminded of the legacy of racism and slavery in South Carolina and beyond every time they look in the mirror, she said. 

"It's very difficult for me to forget this history because it's written on my skin. I'm a descendant of enslaved people and slaveholders and slavers. And so every time I look in the mirror, I see that history. I can't leave it in the past, because it's written on my body." 

Clemson University voted to tell the "complete history" of Clemson in 2015, which includes the legacy of slavery and using convict laborers and sharecroppers to farm and build Clemson's earliest campus buildings. 

The work at Woodland is just one part of telling that story, Thomas said. The rest will come with activism, time, and progress. 

"I don't see the cemetery project as the game-changer. It's just something that we need to do.

"It's one of the many things that we need to do in order to fully embrace Clemson's history, to connect with local African American communities, to sit down together and figure out how the university can be more supportive of the whole state as a land--grant institution."

Zoe covers Clemson, just don't ask her about touchdowns or tackles – she covers everything non-sports. Find her at znicholson@gannett.com or @zoenicholson_  on Twitter. Beware, she has a Black Belt in Karate.