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Author: bxpnyc

I’m a digital journalist and filmmaker based in Richmond, VA. I have written features and analysis for Mother Jones, ColorLines, the Nation Investigative Fund, Huffington Post, and other publications and websites. I have contributed video reporting to outlets such as MTV News & Docs, ABC World News, and PBS Now with David Brancaccio. I have photographed for the New York Times, Politiken (Copenhagen), Die Zeit, and others. Currently, I’m working on a documentary called Make the Ground Talk, about historic communities in Tidewater Virginia founded by the formerly enslaved that were uprooted and nearly erased in the 20th century. My first documentary, Full Disclosure, chronicles my three "embeds" with First Battalion/Second Marines in Iraq. The documentary premiered in 2010 at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and is available on TFI Reframe Collection/Amazon. http://reframecollection.org/films/film?Id=2140 From 2000-2002, I was a New York City-based correspondent for CNN, where I covered regional, national, and international news. In the mid 1990s, I served as Beijing Bureau Chief for US News & World Report. During my 20 year career, I have covered war and conflict, the White House and Capitol Hill, and life at the grassroots around the world.

Web_export_20170527_Evergreen_Cemetery_Richmond_VA_5D1_0220 — Flag planting at Evergreen Cemetery in honor of Memorial Day. By the end of the long weekend, volunteers had placed nearly 200 flags at Evergreen and East End, where veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam are laid to rest; May 27, 2017. Photo by Brian Palmer

The Friends of East End Cemetery Inc. is now a 501 (c)(3), a nonprofit registered with the Internal Revenue Service. This means we’re eligible to receive tax-deductible donations. (We’re asking people to wait on contributing until we give the word to contribute!)

We spent a productive Memorial Day weekend at the cemetery, weed-whacking and weed-plucking in the front section. The Knights and the Taylors came by to tend their family plots while we were there.

We took a few moments to look back on what we’ve accomplished over the past four years with our friends and partners. Since John first rolled up in the Shuck Truck, we’ve cleared roughly three and half acres of the 16-acre cemetery. About 6,000 volunteers have participated in nearly 300 work days at this hallowed ground. These figures don’t count the thousands of hours of clearing, photographing, and researching that core volunteers have invested in the restoration effort on unscheduled work days.

It’s been four excellent years—and we’re just getting started. We look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks.

Web_export_20170529_East_End_Cemetery_Memorial_Day_5D2_0053 — Mr. Thomas Taylor plants flowers in his family plot after weeding it. He’s been tending his loved ones’ graves at East End Cemetery for many years; May 29, 2017. Photo by Brian Palmer

Web_export_20170529_Evergreen_Cemetery_Memorial_Day_5D2_0001 — A grave decorated for Memorial Day in a section of Evergreen Cemetery that was recently cleared by volunteers; May 27, 2017. Photo by Brian Palmer