UNMARKED Film Review — Reclaiming History

UNMARKED Sheds Light On the Untold Stories of Our Country

With a total run-time of 40 minutes, this documentary, directed by Chris Haley and Brad J. Bennett, highlights various African American gravesites in Virginia, examining why so many of them have been forgotten and abandoned over the years. Unmarked also utilizes animation at times, featuring sketched images in sepia tones to depict aspects of the narration, which this reviewer found elevated the film.

Dr. Annette Anderson, who has ancestors buried at the Sweet Briar Burial Ground, describes how many enslaved people buried their loved ones in secret, under the cover of night. Despite this, they were still able to keep track of who was buried where, so that family could be buried together over the years. These graves serve as an archival record of some people who might not have been recorded in other documents. In uncovering them, many current residents of Virginia have found their ancestors buried in these cemeteries.

The process of uncovering these forgotten cemeteries is often referred to as reclaiming. Brian Palmer, journalist and volunteer at one gravesite in Richmond known as East End Cemetery, discusses how his wife has found over 600 graves amidst the overgrowth. The process of reclamation and maintenance of these sites is constant and overwhelming at times, but Brian describes how, until a person uncovers graves themselves, “you don’t understand how powerful it is viscerally. You are reclaiming history with your hands.”

In another scene, a mother and her son rake vegetation from headstones at East End Cemetery as she teaches him about the family they have buried here. Later, the mother, Jarene, laments how they have not been able to receive the government support needed to maintain the cemeteries and prevent them from growing over. Standing with a rake in her hand as others clean off graves behind her, Jarene states how her family would visit this neglected cemetery and do their best to maintain the graves of their loved ones. She then describes the feeling of nausea she would get as a child when they would drive past the clean, well-kept Confederate cemetery just around the corner. “It was just such a huge disparity, visually,” she says. “This has been a legacy of racism, disenfranchisement, and disinvestment.”

Later in the film, Dr. Anderson discusses an iconic photo that was taken of her, in which tears run down her face as she hugs her son. Providing context for that image, she tells us how her son had asked her why other cemeteries, such as those to Confederate soldiers, are preserved and clearly marked, but this cemetery, where countless African Americans have been buried through the centuries, is largely unmarked and uncared for? She choked up as she realized he was asking her why is this injustice happening? “It was a really powerful moment as a mother,” Dr. Anderson says, “to have to explain to him more about our family’s history, and how we got here.”