STARKVILLE — When Anna Pugh arrived in Starkville as an undergraduate anthropology student in 2023, she didn’t know much about Brush Arbor cemetery. To her surprise, the people she met who had lived in Starkville their whole lives didn’t know much either.
As part of the inaugural cohort chosen to study and digitally preserve the cemetery and its residents’ history, Pugh and other students helped identify 81 burials – many without headstones – in the cemetery by the end of their summer in the field school, including the names of three people buried on the two-acre property who were previously unknown.
It was work that felt meaningful, she said. They were uncovering connections that directly impacted people in the community.
“Even in talking to some of the descendants of who we know to have (been buried) there, they didn’t know about these connections either,” she said. “That’s part of their memory and the memory will forever be lost unless we connect these people or we at least make this information accessible and visible.”
Now the preservation effort for Brush Arbor, formerly known as the Starkville Colored Cemetery, has come to an abrupt end. A nearly $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that was funding the field school program was terminated earlier this month in a wave of funding cuts made to comply with executive orders from the Trump Administration.
NEH updated its funding restrictions to disclude programs that don’t comply with executive orders dealing specifically with diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and gender ideology.
Mississippi State University Vice President for Strategic Communications and Director of Public Affairs Sid Salter confirmed researchers were notified that grant funding for the Starkville Colored Cemetery Field School program was included in those cuts.
“The field work this summer was scheduled to start next month, but with the news of the cancellation of funding, they will not be proceeding with that,” Salter told The Dispatch on Thursday. “… The Brush Arbor project not only had academic value, but it was a project that we saw as providing community service as well. Some real regret that we’re not able at this time to continue that work.”
Jordan Lynton Cox, a former assistant professor of anthropology at MSU who spearheaded the creation of the field school, was sad to hear the program’s funding was cut. She now works at Ohio State University.
“The cemetery is so deserving of work and care, and it is disheartening to know that the funding is not going to be there anymore to support it in this capacity,” she said. “I think how I feel is just deep sadness for what this work did and what this work could have continued to do.”
‘These are peoples’ lives’
The field school’s first and only cohort in 2023 identified 41 headstones, with burial dates ranging from the early 1880s to the 1950s. The team also identified three people buried on the two-acre property who were previously unknown: N.B. and Annie Bell and John Love.
The program paused in 2024 and was meant to start again with a new cohort next month. To Lynton Cox, the cuts didn’t only affect the research, but also a growing community partnership focused on preserving the cemetery.
“There were all of these community organizations that were connected to the site in different ways,” she said. “I feel like the field school, in a way, really created a moment where all of those organizations could work together.”
The combination of academic and community importance left a lasting impression on Pugh, she said, eventually motivating her to pursue similar research as a graduate student. She said she is concerned about the impact these funding cuts can have on community-based research.
“With this history, I think it’s important now more than ever to take notice of these histories because it’s not a political history or an opinion about this history,” she said. “… Within this community, these are peoples’ families, these are peoples’ lives. These are lost connections that they don’t know about.”
Oktibbeha County District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer, who was an early supporter of the project, agreed. The cemetery has a lot of history, and losing your history impacts the entire community, he said.
“The time behind you is more than what is in front of you and so therefore it becomes near and dear to your heart,” he said. “Anytime you have a threat or some type of challenge to legacies to memories to historical things … you really don’t understand the value of it until it’s not available.”
Continuing the work
Even if it is done without federal funding, Trainer said it is critical for some type of preservation effort to continue at Brush Arbor.
“Something ought to be able to continue, even if the works stops right there,” he said. “It still ought to be memorialized or in some way recorded so people can understand. Even the funding being terminated, that in itself is a part of the history too.”
Lynton Cox is hopeful there are ways to do that.
“People can assign the cemetery as a site for students to study as part of their class and accumulate knowledge there,” she said. “There are still ways in which Mississippi State is committed to community, and has the infrastructure for community-based teaching and learning that can be attenuated to the cemetery.”
While losing the field school is a setback to the cemetery’s preservation, the goal was always to return the responsibility to the community, she said.
“I think we’re going to have to, in a lot of ways, work together to figure out how to do this work and do it in community while folks are still trying to figure out the funding landscape,” she said. “But it definitely is a huge blow. There’s no way around that.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 44 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
