Empowering cemetery preservation with Our Graveyard Boots // Intercultural Microgrant Guest Blog
The following guest blog is from 2024 Intercultural Microgrant recipients Kaira Tucker & Angela Brown about their project Our Graveyard Boots, with funding from our partner The Monument Workshop at UK. Learn more about this project at kyrux.org/microgrants/2024.
A Message from Our Graveyard Boots
We are Angela & Kaira — two taphophiles who met and bonded over our shared love of cemeteries in 2021. Thank you for picking up our zine and/or participating in Our Graveyard Boots: Cemetery Preservation Info Session. We would like to enthusiastically thank the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange for making this possible, and we hope that you will use this information to help champion and preserve historic cemeteries and headstones, as well as make connections and friendships with others. Few things have the power to unify us like the inevitable — and cemeteries are the perfect incarnation of just that. To round out our mission is a quote from Freeman Tilden, a legendary historic interpreter and preservationist: “Through interpretation, understanding; through understanding, appreciation; through appreciation, protection.”
Our RUX microgrant enabled us to host the first incarnation of Our Graveyard Boots: Cemetery Preservation Info Session at the Louisville Free Public Library on January 25, 2025. We could not be more pleased with the turnout, participation, and momentum it has built. Transitioning from urban to rural, our next info session is shaping together to be held in Meade County in April. In the summer, we plan to return to Louisville Cemetery with others to find the resting place of community activist and leader in Louisville's African-American community, Bessie L. Allen. Her work made indelible impacts on youth, education, and inspired individuals who became successful musicians. Her exact resting place is difficult to locate, and it is not currently known if it is marked by a monument. If found, we plan to document and (if needed) clean her headstone. If not, we hope to build interest in having a maker installed someday.
At our information session, after sharing our individual experiences as Kentucky taphophiles (Angela's "Grave Raves" where she shares the lives and legacies of Louisville musicians and others; Kaira's cemetery tours, conservation training, and ambition to visit 100 cemeteries every year, as well as one in all 120 Kentucky counties), we provided basic information about how to approach gravestone cleaning with an emphasis on leaving stones alone if a (gentle, well-informed) cleaning is not necessary. The goal should always be preservation and documentation, never scrubbing every stone to look like new. We encouraged participants to use cemetery preservation opportunities as a means of amplifying voices, connecting to their community, and using their own unique talents and interest to share their enthusiasm for local history. We also connected them to resources from the National Parks Service, National Trust, and state agencies.
Participants were provided with a copy of our zine, refreshments (because this is Kentucky and you can't have company if you aren't going to feed them), and headstone cleaning starter kit, including:
9 qt bucket
Natural bristle bamboo brush
Soft bristle paint brush for dusting
Biodegradable waste bags
Spray bottles
Bamboo skewers for crevices
Soft cloth
Gloves to protect hands
Pruning shears
Notebook and pencil for note-taking
This has been an incredible experience for us that has allowed two taphophiles the opportunity to share their unique and individual perspectives and approaches to cemetery preservation. We are passionate about the art, history, and sense of place that Kentucky cemeteries provide. We hope that others will find inspiration to get involved in cemetery preservation, advocacy, or be inspired to join a preservation group or make something creative that is inspired by these incredible spaces.
See the team in action:
Read the first issue of the zine:
Learn more & resources:
—Our Graveyard Boots
The Kentucky Intercultural Microgrant Program is a seed grant to support two or more individuals or organizations collaborating across distance, difference, or sector on projects that celebrate and connect Kentucky's people and places.
Launched with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Fund for the Arts, the Monument Workshop at UK, the Josh May Memorial Fund, and individual donors, the 2024 Microgrant Program invests in a series of seed grants (awards from $250-2000) to support short-term projects that foster dialogue, connection, or collaboration among Kentuckians from disparate backgrounds, identities, or experiences. Projects that involve diverse partners and invite the public to participate are preferred.