A Guide to Historic African American Communities in Burleson County
Learn from The Partners
Our community partners participated in oral history interviews with the students of More than Monuments. During the interviews, students captured the rich history of Sweet Home Church and Birch Creek. The videos here are just a snippet of important history provided by our community partners.
Doc Hester
"You see, when you got a neighborhood, all of the children go to school in one place, you get to know the whole neighborhood" "The neighborhood was a close-knit community, everyone knew each other and had some sort of relation."
Barbara Hester
"But once we crossed over the loop bridge out here and going up on the railroad track, we know we were in Somerville, and so we were just excited to be in some of y'all even though we know it was not gonna be games and pleasure. We knew we were gonna have, to work. But it was just getting away from the country from the city to come to the country because we had more freedom."
Debra Coleman
" He assisted with the Corps of Engineers in there with that (the moving of the cemetery). He was there at the area and saw them as they dug up the graves. I don't know why but at certain times the caskets were not securely closed or whatever, but he did mention that several bodies they had seen the hair on the individuals they were moving."