Local

Buckhead community trying to preserve cemetery after vandals hit

ATLANTA — Right at the front entrance of Frankie Allen Park, nestled under the pine trees is an historic African-American cemetery.

The area used to be Macedonia Park, which was a community established in the early 20th century.

"It had three churches, two grocery stores and several hundred residents who were here at the time. It was a thriving community here until the early 1940s," said Erica Danylchak.

Mt. Olive Cemetery is now all that remains of that community.

Channel 2's Craig Lucie walked around with Erica Danylchak of the Buckhead Heritage Society.

"This is an important site to the community and they can see someone is caring for it," said Danylchak.

The society has cleared the area, but vandals keep targeting it.

"We did have one (grave) that was knocked down a couple of years ago," said Danylchak.

But vandals have struck again.

"There have been three headstones that have been knocked over which we have photographic evidence from just a couple of months ago where those were upright. Unfortunately, someone came into the cemetery and actually deliberately vandalized the cemetery," said Danylchak.

When someone kicked over the headstones, they created some permanent damage. You can see where they cracked in half off of their base.

"I think it's unfortunate," said Will Hammons.

Hammons home backs up to the cemetery. Lucie showed him the damage and how the Buckhead Heritage Society is now raising money and organizing a major cleanup day to preserve history.

 "I think it's a great idea to get it restore. It's cool to keep a piece of the history here," said Hammons.

The Buckhead Heritage Society is trying to raise $3,000 to clean up the land. They have raised $1,000 so far.

If you would like to help or learn more about the future clean-up day, you can visit their website: www.buckheadheritage.com