By Jamie Jordan

My introduction to the Reese Street Mapping project was through an email I received from Dr. Shannon in April 2024 in which he sought undergraduate researchers to work on an ongoing effort to visualize and assist in the development of a narrative of Athens’ historic Black Reese Street neighborhood. I had just accepted an internship to work over the summer for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s Workforce and Economic Development division, located in the Lucy Cobb Building at the intersection of Reese Street and Milledge Avenue. While I was initially keen to get involved with any ongoing CURO project with the Community Mapping Lab (CML), this connection made me more excited about the prospect of learning more about this community in particular. Additionally. I had a friend who lived off Chase Street who told me about a nearby fraternity house, whose presence contributed to a tumultuous dynamic between generational locals and students. Cursory research revealed a fascinating, frustrating history of the frat’s role in creating a sort of student-driven gentrification in the community. This further piqued my interest in the Reese Street Mapping project. Although I failed to receive a CURO grant after applying over the summer of 2024, I managed to secure one upon reapplying in December.
           
In January 2025, I was thrilled to learn that I would be working alongside another undergraduate student, Jessica, on the Reese Street project, which enabled us to hone our mixed methods approach by divvying the work such that I focused primarily on the quantitative parts while Jessica explored the neighborhood more qualitatively. Our earliest tasks involved priming ourselves with a better understanding of the neighborhood, which we achieved through analysis of Amy Andrews’ thesis, “Reese Street’s Last Stand: An African American Local Historic District’s Fight to Retain Community and Identity.” Her thorough research laid the groundwork for our subsequent investigations, providing detailed insights into the history of change in the dynamic neighborhood. It also served to further contextualize the importance of our effort to showcase the evolution of the area and inspired us to think more critically about what our deliverable should look like.
           
In an early meeting with our partners at Historic Athens, including Hope Iglehart (a lifelong, generational Reese Street resident) and Denise Sunta, we discussed various possibilities of the most appropriate format for showcasing the narrative of change in the community. We explored several differently structured StoryMaps and collectively favored the idea of presenting multiple distinct time periods such that we could more clearly contrast a given era against another– this framework was loosely based on an exhibit in New York City’s Tenement Museum, which immerses guests into various temporal landscapes.

Due to the accessibility of census data, combined with the CML’s previous and ongoing research using the 1958 directory, we decided to begin by exploring the 1926-1927 and 1958 Athens city directories.
Jessica and I cleaned spreadsheets of census data using Google Sheets, which involved both basic quality control and identifying which Black residents lived within the geographic scope of the Reese Street neighborhood in a given time period– we then visualized where residents lived in 1958 in QGIS. This was especially tedious– involving some manual cross-referencing with data from Athens-Clarke County Open Data, which has contemporary shapefile boundaries of local historic districts– as well as Amy Andrews’ thesis, which details the expansion of the community’s geography over time. Despite these highly convenient sources, I learned through this process that outlining the boundary of a neighborhood is often a difficult and intensive challenge since communities are so geographically nebulous.

Later, I scrubbed data for the 1926-’27 city directory in preparation for its geocoding, such that we could visualize the residential occupancy of the Reese Street neighborhood for this time period. Upon geocoding in ArcGIS Pro, we produced a map that outlined where Reese Street residents lived in the mid-’20s and what their professions were, with a significant amount of confidence in its accuracy. By geocoding the census data from both this directory and the ‘58 directory, we were able to generate a “Web Experience” on ArcGIS Online (see Figure 1) which allows for convenient toggling between the two eras, enabling audiences to more easily visualize the expansion of the neighborhood over time.

Perhaps my foremost takeaway from this project has been an appreciation for the importance of pivoting and adjusting expectations when constrained by time. In our first meeting with Historic Athens, we set ambitious goals for the deliverable, discussing the possibilities of oral history efforts and more greatly implementing descendants of Reese Street residents into the StoryMap, but had to iteratively take a step back and reassess to determine what we could feasibly produce by the end of the semester that would be of good quality. One skill I honed through working on this project was data prepping for geocoding– I have learned through some of the relatively tedious scrubbing work I did mid-semester that even seemingly basic QCing requires significant patience and attention to detail. It was a privilege to work on the Reese Street Mapping Project this semester and I look forward to seeing how future CURO researchers with the CML further innovatively flesh out this important story using the structure Jessica and I developed.

By Maya Lee, CML CURO Student

This spring semester, I worked with Vanessa Raditz from the UGA Institute of Women’s Studies to continue their work on Queer Climate Justice. We built on an existing map that Vanessa created last semester with the help of other undergraduate researchers. This map combined multiple variables related to disaster risk for LGBTQ+ people and created a visual that highlighted areas where queer and trans communities are in urgent need of investment for disaster preparedness and response. You can view the StoryMap and read more about the project here.

My work with Vanessa this semester included adding layers to the map that show projected future conditions in these high-risk areas for queer and trans communities. Before mapping, we researched climate modeling to determine which models and types of data would be most appropriate. Once we had a better understanding of climate models, along with their vocabulary and acronyms, we investigated critiques and limitations of climate modeling, including how bias corrections are done. After this, we began searching for the data needed for the new map layers. After meeting with Dr. Anna Harper from the Geography Department, we decided to use data from the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) for a 2°C (3.6°F) global warming scenario. From this dataset, we selected ten of the fifteen available variables.

The previous map included a Cumulative Risk Index that combined FEMA’s National Risk Index data with information about where LGBTQ+ people live and the laws that affect them. This generated a single number that made the data easier to visualize. For the updated map, this index was revised and expanded into five distinct indexes, providing a more comprehensive view of climate-related risk and LGBTQ+ exposure:

1. Current Hazards Index: This is the average of the Z-scores from the FEMA National Risk Index data. It shows present-day climate and natural hazard risks across the U.S., such as floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters.
2. Future Hazards Index: This is the average of the Z-scores from the NCA5 (Fifth National Climate Assessment) data, which projects climate hazards under a scenario where global warming reaches 2°C. This helps identify regions that will likely become more dangerous over time due to climate change.
3. Vulnerability Index: This combines social vulnerability and policy data, using the average of the Z-scores from:
   1. SOVI (Social Vulnerability Index): Measures a community's ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.
   2. SO Policy Score: Reflects how state policies affect sexual orientation rights.
   3. GI Policy Score: Reflects how state policies affect gender identity rights.
4. Exposure Index: This is the average of the Z-scores for four key metrics that reflect how LGBTQ+ people are specifically exposed to climate risks:
   1. Percent of the state population who are queer.
   2. Percent of the state population who are trans.
   3. Percent of the displaced population who are queer.
   4. Percent of the displaced population who are trans.
5. Cumulative Risk Index: This final number is the average of the four other indexes listed above. It provides an overall summary that captures how each state scores in terms of climate hazard, vulnerability, exposure, and future risk, all through a lens that includes LGBTQ+ populations and policy environments.

The final outcome of our work this semester was an updated map that includes these five indexes, raw data from FEMA’s National Risk Index, the ten selected NCA5 variables, and five additional layers showing the locations of fossil fuel power plants and pipelines.

Through this project, I gained valuable experience with the mapping process. From researching and gathering data to cleaning and visualizing it using mapping tools such as ArcGIS Online, I was able to strengthen these skills and my familiarity with the entire workflow. Although I had a little prior experience, I now feel much more confident using the system.

Finally, I gained experience working in a research setting with people outside a typical class structure.
This was also my first time working directly with department staff outside of a class or club. It was an incredibly useful experience that helped me improve my time management, communication, and problem-solving skills. It also helped me build connections within the Geography Department and the Community Mapping Lab—connections that I know will continue to be valuable. Being introduced to the CML group has been especially meaningful, as I’ve learned about other projects, new connections, and ongoing work.

Overall, this research project has been crucial for my skill development. I have enjoyed working on it, conducting research, and creating something meaningful for an important cause. This experience will continue to support my growth as I move forward in school and beyond.

By Jessica Muniz

I'm a first-year student who spent the Spring 2025 semester conducting research in the University of Georgia's Community Mapping Lab (CML). My research focuses on creating a digital walking tour of the Reese Street Neighborhood, a historically Black neighborhood in Athens, Georgia, during the period of the 1950s. The project's objective is to assist the community with learning and remembering the neighborhood's history, especially the local youth.

After my acceptance to UGA, I was offered a CURO Honors Scholar scholarship. This fancy title means that I am in a four-year cohort, and we all conduct research on absolutely anything we choose. After taking Dr. Hysjulien's Introduction to GIS class, I instantly grew a passion, so I knew a research project with GIS would be a great idea. Shortly after the class, Dr. Shannon, the professor, Amber, the graduate researcher, and Jamie, my research partner, welcomed me into the lab with open arms.
           
In my first few weeks of researching, I read a graduate thesis by Ms. Amy Andrews. The thesis provided a good background of the Reese Street Neighborhood, allowing me to understand my future tasks. Next, I was given a huge spreadsheet that was a digitized version of the 1958 Athen's directory. My task was to compare the data in the spreadsheet to the original directory and ensure the data was accurate. We also started meeting with Historic Athens, a community partner, to discuss the semester's timeline and new ideas. I truly appreciated Dr. Shannon and Amber for always taking the time and providing instructions, especially when furthering my GIS skills.
           
As the semester progressed, my research role turned more qualitative than quantitative, meaning I dealt with more words than numbers. My new task was to do genealogy research on certain people and places. Simply, I had to learn as much as possible about certain people from historical records, newspapers, and images. In this process, I found a rhythm sifting through the websites Ancestry, FamilySearch, and Georgia Historic Newspapers. I also learned how to retrieve archival documents and images from the University of Georgia's Special Collections Library. Our meetings with Historic Athens and other researchers were essential in filling in the gaps or finding mistakes that I had found or made along the way.
           
Towards the end of the semester, my research partner, Jamie, and I presented at an undergraduate research conference called the CURO Symposium. Previously, I had presented on mini-research projects in Georgia 4-H, but no presentation was to the degree of undergraduate research. Indeed, I was nervous, hoping that my presentation skills would shine, and that I would not stutter. Nevertheless, Jamie and I had an amazing presentation, and the audience asked multiple questions, only growing my confidence. As the semester has come to an end, I am currently polishing the last edits of the 1958 walking tour.
           
On a final note, I have learned numerous lessons and skills this semester, but I will spare you the time and speak only of two. As I have stated countless times, I learned how to conduct genealogy and archival research, but these skills hit "very close to home." My mom's side of the family has lived in the Starr's Mill, Georgia area for many years. I have always wondered about our family history spanning to the days of slavery, as my mom's side of the family is African American. Now, through the mentorship and training of Dr. Shannon and Amber, I can trace my family history, and hopefully, create a website or walking tour of my own to teach my family about our history. Secondly, I learned the importance of resilience. As a freshman, college was a crazy adjustment, especially academically. The research lab allowed me to fail and try again. In fact, many of my facts would be slightly off, or I would have an incorrect picture. Nevertheless, everyone supported me, and I would, simply, try again. Truly, I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked in the Community Mapping Lab, and I cannot wait to see the future growth of the Reese Street Neighborhood project!

by Riley Viskochil

This semester I am taking community GIS, a class offered at the University of Georgia that is centered around community organizations through map making. Since I am majoring in ecology, most of my experience in GIS has been focused on wildlife and land use data. I thought this class would be more focused on the methodology of GIS or similar projects I have done. However, this class could not be more different from what I thought it would be. Throughout this semester I have learned valuable things about myself, the community of Athens, GA, and how maps have the power to affect peoples’ lives. This class has made me question my positionality as a student at the University of Georgia and a person outside the black community of Athens, as well as the roles I play in my community of Athens and in society as a whole. This has become clear in the community aid projects done in Athens and how we have worked with them.

​In early February, when the trees had no leaves and the cold air bit at our face, our class made our first trip to Brooklyn Cemetery, a historically Black cemetery nestled in the craze of Athens. Brooklyn started interring members of the black community of Athens in the 1800s and stayed active until the late 1970s. While we walked through the cemetery, our thoughts were accompanied by the crunch of leaves and thumps as our feet bumped into tree roots. Brooklyn has been a victim of severe neglect having been constructed in the aftermath of American chattel slavery and active throughout the era of Jim Crow. A typical image of a cemetery that I am familiar with is one of short grass and clear paths, an image of which Brooklyn does not possess. Compared to other cemeteries in Athens, where most of the people interred were white, Brooklyn did not and still does not have the same resources to maintain its grounds and inventories. Because of this, the cemetery has withstood extreme neglect and overgrowth. The paths are made of dirt, there are sunken and various unmarked graves, and vegetation and tall trees whose roots have intertwined with the grave sites are scattered throughout the landscape. This view was hard to stomach seeing it for the first time. I remember at this moment thinking that letting a final resting place fall into such disrepair was disrespectful to the memory of those buried there.

However, while still devastating and unjust to the people buried in Brooklyn Cemetery, I have learned this semester that it is also not fair to people that have faced oppression to view them solely as victims. Throughout history, people who have faced great adversities have triumphed in their fight for justice and equality. Many people have helped me come to see this but one notable person is Ms. Linda Davis, a member of the Athens community who works with the organization “Friends of Brooklyn Cemetery” that is helping to bring the history of the cemetery to the community. She has given us priceless knowledge and insight that we have used to work on our project this semester. At one meeting we had with her, she shared an experience she had one day in the cemetery. She remembered it being a spring day in which the trees’ leaves began to grow back and rays of light shone through the canopy that covered the graves. Upon looking up, she spotted a deer foraging on the grass. The deer noticed her and they held a moment of eye contact before the deer trotted away. Her story made me realize that although  Brooklyn did not have the images of cemeteries that I am familiar with, it has its own sense of beauty in the face of neglect. The gravesites of families buried there have acted as a sanctuary that has cultivated new life. The roots of trees have intertwined with various graves and thus the essence of new life is connected to previous one. The vegetation supports animals in the surrounding area. While we do not have the resources to give Brooklyn a makeover, nor the will to disrupt the peaceful nature it has grown, there are other methods to give a sense of justice to those buried there. In this aspect arose the idea for our project this semester.

In previous years, other community GIS classes have compiled geographical data about the cemetery, and have located unmarked graves and provided coordinates for others. This semester, we have been more focused on the lives of the people there before they were interred at Brooklyn. Throughout this term, we have compiled genealogical data on a number of families in order to tell their stories. We focused on things like census records and city directories to find out more about them. By solely looking at a grave, you cannot tell how a person lived, but now with the information we have, we know different family relations, where they worked, and how they fit into their communities. It sounds silly to say, but seeing this information about peoples’ lives made the project seem more real. Through the use of the geographical data, we can see the routes they might have taken to commute to work. Although this was just a small part of a person’s everyday life, it is just one small detail we’ve come across that has fleshed out someone’s life.

The geographical and biographical data was put into ESRI story maps that show the family history and the lives they lived in Athens. We plan to present our story maps at Historic Athens history hour and tell the lives of the families of Brooklyn history, not just as victims of neglect, but everyday people who contributed to society, who loved and laughed with their family, and were valuable members to their communities.
 
Riley Viskochil | University of Georgia

Keywords: Community GIS, Brooklyn Cemetery

by Md Rakibuzzaman

Community geography is an important subset of geography that emphasizes the importance of local knowledge and participatory methods in geographic research. To acquire community knowledge, build relationships, and conduct participatory research, this course is specifically designed to combine theoretical knowledge with an overview of different GIScience techniques under the guidance of Dr. Jerry Shannon. As an ongoing effort to achieve the course objectives, we as a class are working with the community members of Brooklyn Cemetery and exploring its historical background.

Before diving deeper into the main focus of this blog post, I want to provide a brief glimpse of Brooklyn Cemetery. The Brooklyn Cemetery in Athens, Georgia, stands as a testament to the resilience and history of the Black community. Founded in the late 19th century, this burial ground has witnessed generations of African American families who, despite systemic marginalization, have remained steadfast in preserving their heritage. Yet, like many historic Black cemeteries, Brooklyn Cemetery faces threats of erasure—both physically, through encroachment and neglect, and historically, through the fading of collective memory. In the rest of this blog post, I want to focus on how community geography can be an effective tool in uncovering historical narratives, examining the factors affecting these communities, and passing down information through mapping, digital archives, and storytelling to the descendants of those buried here.

To undertake this kind of work, we as a class started off by discussing important theoretical concepts, which I believe is an essential step before engaging with community members or observing a sensitive site. I will briefly discuss some of these theories and connect them with the work we are doing. In the first class, we discussed a central conceptual framework consisting of three primary principles for implementing community-driven projects: (1) Who, (2) Why, and (3) How. This framework provides us with a basic foundation for understanding how community geography (CG) works, how CG empowers a community, the types of stakeholders involved, and the importance of collaborative research. Also, we discussed about Hyphen-spaces, which helped us to understand our positionality in the context of Brooklyn cemetery. We then moved on to another core concept of Black Geography—Plantation Futures by McKittrick—which discusses the history of slavery, contemporary racial and spatial inequalities, and the embedded social and institutional hierarchies that have paved the way for systemic oppression. She also explores the ways in which Black communities resist these forces through the concept of the “Plot.” Simply put, the Plot represents a space of survival, autonomy, and cultural continuity in opposition to the plantation system. To connect these theoretical concepts with practical applications, I, along with some talented scholars, am exploring a particular family plot (e.g., the Daniel family) within Brooklyn Cemetery.
 
The class has been fortunate to have the guidance of community members via a relationship with the Friends of Brooklyn Cemetery, who have helped situate Brooklyn Cemetery within a larger local context in order to understand the significance of this work. Linda E. Davis (representative of Brooklyn cemetery) came to speak with our class back in February, briefly discussing the significance of Brooklyn, the people, and eventually raising a number of questions that we have been exploring through the semester. She pointed out important issues, such as why the number of Black students at UGA has decreased and why Black students continue to face barriers in accessing quality education. In class, we have been thinking about how to carry these questions and stories forward and utilize the power of Community GIS to preserve and share this information with current descendants. In the lab, our group has been extracting and compiling historical data from various sources such as census records, FamilySearch, city directories, and the Ancestry Library. We started by creating conventional maps of the family’s gravesite using QGIS. Many of us have little to no firsthand experience with QGIS, so I would say this has been a great starting point for making maps and presenting spatial data in the most visually effective way possible. However, through Community GIS, we are thinking beyond traditional map design—we aim to present historical data in a way that tangibly connects the past to the present for the community. 

Our work doesn’t stop there. In response to Ms. Linda’s concerns and questions, we are also considering how to present our findings directly to the community, fostering a deeper and more meaningful connection to the cemetery through a public history lens. One approach we are taking is creating ArcGIS StoryMaps, which combine text, media, and maps to present historical information in a format that resonates with community members seeking knowledge about their ancestors or their own family history. This initiative not only archives historical records but also serves as an educational resource, allowing both community members and researchers to engage with Brooklyn Cemetery’s history in a meaningful way.

The University of Georgia (UGA) is a prime example of what Katherine McKittrick has referred to as “plantation geography,” as it is rooted in the exploitation of enslaved Africans and the dispossession of Indigenous lands from the very origins of the institution, a history that has still not been reconciled at present. I am now thinking about how, after completing our project, we might be able to answer some of the concerns raised by Linda E. Davis. What other dimensions—such as institutional and social factors—need to be addressed to fully understand these issues? As part of our ongoing efforts, how can we build trust-based relationships with the community and strengthen their capacity through our digital archive and enhanced StoryMaps? Additionally, it would be valuable to design 3D maps that incorporate sections of the gravesite and various landscape architectural elements, making Brooklyn Cemetery’s historical significance more aesthetic and visible to the public. 

Md Rakibuzzaman is a first-year master's student studying Geography. Rakib is passionate about exploring advances in GIScience and machine learning to visualize spatial data and make data-driven decisions. In the long term, he plans to utilize these skills in his thesis and carry them forward beyond graduation.

Keywords: Community GIS, GIScience, Brooklyn Cemetery, Black History, Historical Preservation

by Rajath Prabhakar

Brooklyn Cemetery
Established in 1882, the Brooklyn Cemetery is the final resting place for residents of the Hawthorne area of West Athens. It was one of the first Black cemeteries established in Athens. Since then, it has been the victim of nature, time, and disrepair. In more recent times, there have been efforts to restore the cemetery, removing truckloads of debris over time. Our project sought to go one step further and bring the stories of the families buried in this cemetery to life. We sought to put the words of McKittrick into action, when she conceptualizes “plantation futures: a conceptualization of time-space that tracks the plantation toward the prison and the impoverished and destroyed city Sectors” (McKittrick 2). Our project also sought to serve as a guide for urban planners and for broader political action. As Andrea Roberts put it, “awareness of where a colony exists, or in some cases, once was located, opens the door to access. Gaining invited entry into a colony’s social system, to speak with those who call these places “home,” or to observe shared traditions is key to understanding these places and their history”(Roberts 15).

Many of these graves, 40 to be precise, are of Black WW1, WW2, and Korean War veterans. Recently, we met with the two community members that showed up. The point of this meeting was to discuss our progress with the project of preserving the genealogical histories of the families buried within Brooklyn Cemetery. This progress check was met with relative enthusiasm; if nothing else, it was nice to see that people liked the work that we did very much and brought them joy. But it sort of ended there; there are still insufficiently answered questions.

For example:
a. Why would people that aren't immediate descendants of these families care about these people?
b. What does this add that we don't already know? Specifically the broader history of the Black experience in America, even in Athens, Georgia specifically.

The disrepair of the cemetery is a continuation of the war on Black America
But the disrepair seen at Brooklyn Cemetery is just one more point in a long history of oppression and white supremacy seen in the United States, and in Athens alone. Whether in life or in death, Black people are treated as second-class citizens in Athens as well as in the US more broadly. Whether it is Brooklyn Cemetery, Baldwin Hall, or the Athens Housing Crisis most recently, the undercurrent of white supremacy is clearly seen.

Baldwin Hall
On November 17, 2015, the renovation of Baldwin Hall resulted in human remains being dug up. They would later be found to be the remains of former slaves. As is a theme with any issue involving the University of Georgia, the administration obstructed the process of justice at every turn,from not consulting the black community of Athens on the reinterment of those remains, prohibiting Athens community members from viewing said reinterment, and an unwillingness to address the legacy of slavery present.

An Underclass at UGA
A leading employer in Georgia and the dominant force in the Athens economy, Athens has a poverty rate of 38%(!), a strong indicator of its continuing legacy of exploitation. As of this writing, despite making up nearly 28% of residents, only 7.7% of students and 5% of faculty are Black. Breaking this down further, by occupation, only 7% of administrators, and as mentioned before, 5% of faculty are Black. However, Black people make up 44% of service employees, the lowest paid workers at UGA.

In addition to UGA’s poor treatment of its majority-Black service workers, the university has also taken steps to abandon its pretense of caring for its Black students. Take, for example, its replacement of the very specific C.L.A.S.S (Continuing the Legacy of African-American Student Success) Advocates with a nebulous “Resident Belonging Ambassador” this past year. The program was essential to making Black students feel welcome at UGA, and find community in the predominantly white institution (PWI). Its replacement cuts the direct support Black students received from the Class Advocate program, a logical endpoint to increasing roadblocks to the program, from not being provided the names of Black students, to being treated as RAs rather than as a position specific to Black students. 

Conclusion
The Brooklyn Cemetery stands as a stark symbol of systemic neglect. Its deterioration mirrors the broader injustices faced by the Black community in Athens - from the desecration of the graves of slaves underneath Baldwin Hall to the economic and educational disparities perpetuated by the University of Georgia.

Rajath Prabhakar is a 4th year Statistics major at UGA

Keywords: Brooklyn Cemetery, systemic racism, slavery

Works Cited
Enlighten Media Productions. “[CC] below Baldwin: How an Expansion Project Unearthed a University’s Legacy of Slavery.” YouTube, 9 Oct. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwQcTfGqANQ. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

McKittrick, Katherine. "Plantation Futures." Small Axe, vol. 17 no. 3, 2013, p. 1-15. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/532740.
Roberts, Andrea. (2017). Documenting and Preserving Texas Freedom Colonies. Texas Heritage Magazine. 2. 14.

Sawyer, Dawn. ““A Long Time Coming”: C.L.A.S.S. Advocate Program’s Removal Worries Black Students.” The Red & Black, 4 Apr. 2024, www.redandblack.com/uganews/a-long-time-coming-c-l-a-s-s-advocate-program-s-removal-worries-black/article_ef4dd9b4-f247-11ee-b044-b3e421b2c428.html.
 
 
 
 
 

by Vijay Murthy

I have felt dissatisfied with this project for much of the class, and I have had time to think about why. Here, I evaluate our praxis so far based on the criteria set forth in the paper “Cartographies of Black Presence” by Rachelle Berry, Amber Orozco, Maya Henderson, Aidan Hysjulien, Maya Rao, and Jerry Shannon of the Community Mapping Lab. I believe these criteria reflect a set of values rooted in liberatory community geography, and we should make sure to follow them.
​
The first criterion is centering “Black livingness rather than absence” (Berry et al. 20xx, 3). On this point, I believe our project is on the right track. By highlighting the lives of the people under the gravestones (or lack of them), we make clear that Brooklyn Cemetery is not merely a neglected graveyard, it is the final resting place of real people with descendants who are still alive. However, one obstacle we have run into is that our portrayals of these individuals are mostly limited to scraps of demographic data: employment, dates of birth, places of residence, number of children. Centering Black subjectivities necessitates looking for personal narratives, and so far we have been unsuccessful in contacting descendants and learning their family stories.

The second criterion is “[m]aking visible the institutions, structures, and processes that disrupt
Black life” (Berry et al. 20xx, 4). I feel that our project completely fails here, at least for now. The bulk of our time has been spent on researching demographic data of people in certain families. A trained eye will notice traces of systemic oppression in this data, from the most common professions to the neighborhoods all the residences seem to be in. But the way we present this data does not highlight that this is a symptom of oppression, let alone the causes of this oppression. In not doing so, it risks naturalizing said oppression. Some ideas I have for improving this are presenting redlining and segregation maps alongside residence maps, providing context for the professions and wages of family members, and incorporating stories of facing and resisting racism that descendants can share with us. But here again we run into the problem of not having contact with descendants to tell us these stories.

The third criterion is “[e]xpanding capacity through reciprocal, trust-based relationships” (Berry et al. 20xx, 4). I feel that we have much work to do here as well. While this project originated with the suggestion of Mrs. Linda Davis, a longtime partner of the Community Geography Lab, and has kept her in the loop, it has had very limited success in bringing in more community members. When we held an open interest meeting, which Mrs. Davis promoted through her networks, only two other community members showed up. It’s good that they showed interest in our work, but we need more community buy-in. The problem goes beyond one community meeting; Mrs. Davis has not been able to get my group in touch with any Wingfield family members who can provide their input, and other groups have run into the same issue. We must seriously ask ourselves why that is. Is this project even desired by the family members and community? Are we contributing anything they find important or useful? 

The fourth criterion is “[c]reating research products that support Black futurity” (Berry et al. 20xx, 5). In other words, does our project address local social goals of the Black community? One could argue that it does, as it highlights the importance of funding renovation of the cemetery and provides people with more information about the people buried in the cemetery. But whose social goals are these? Do Mrs. Davis’ priorities reflect the priorities of Black Athenians, especially young Black Athenians, those who will be responsible for building the future? While we do not know yet, I have seen little evidence to suggest this might be the case. Even the scheduled time of the first community meeting, Wednesday at 2 PM, does not reflect an orientation towards Black Athenians of all ages. It’s no wonder that both community members who showed up to the meeting were retirees, those are the only people available then! If we want to support Black futurity, we should select projects which speak to those who will ultimately build it.

The fifth criterion is “[d]eveloping cartographic practices that represent the embodied
experiences of Black communities” (Berry et al. 20xx, 5). The paper recommends directly incorporating the “voices, faces, and stories of Athens’ Black residence” into our final product, rather than reducing people to mere data points (Berry et al. 20xx, 5). This is something we have not been able to do, not due to malpractice, but because we lack the voices, faces, and stories to incorporate. If we cannot find enough community members to give us feedback on our project, we should perhaps consider that they do not find our work important.

The underlying problem here is a lack of community engagement. This is a sharp contrast to the projects previously undertaken by the Community Mapping Lab. The Linnentown project provided an estimation of how much money displaced homeowners are owed by UGA, actively forwarding the reparations struggle. As an organizer, I made use of the Community Mapping Lab’s eviction project to choose which apartment complexes to focus on distributing eviction defense manuals in. By contrast, it does not appear that we have been able to contribute anything except a pretty data sheet to people who never asked for it. I could be missing the bigger picture here, but I do not think that this project so far has lived up to the values of the Community Mapping Lab, and I hope future classes learn from our mistakes.

by Zachary Mitchell

The definition of Geography is that it is the study of the physical features of a landscape. Geographers represent this study of the landscape through many different means such as maps, spreadsheets, scientific research papers, etc.. Geographers can provide an analysis and study of the physical features of a landscape, but what about the stories behind those landscapes? 

In the Spring 2025 semester I had the privilege of taking the Community GIS (Geographic Information Science) course at the University of Georgia. This is a service learning class that provides students with an opportunity to apply the academic skills that they have learned to a community-identified problem or need. In this course, our class was tasked with telling the stories of families buried in Brooklyn Cemetery. Brooklyn Cemetery is a historically black cemetery that has been established in Athens, Georgia since 1882. The cemetery is directly behind Clarke Central Middle School and Holy Cross Lutheran Church . The cemetery isn’t directly visible due to this, and our goal in the course was to create more visibility through geographic analysis . We analyzed the space through many different types of GIScience-based skills such as data collection, QGIS, and ESRI ArcGIS Story Mapping, but the most important skill we had to encompass in our time in the course was the way in which we interacted with the community and its members. 

At the start of the course we began to hone our skills of how to respectfully work in the community through a geographic viewpoint. One of the papers we read that I found to be most helpful in learning this skill was “Doing Community Geography” by Heather Fischer et. al. In the reading, Fischer provides us with three principles to abide by when doing CG (community geography) work: Who, Why, and How. The Who describes who we’re working with in our CG work, in this case the Brooklyn community. This includes living descendants of family members who are buried in the cemetery but also those who work in/with the cemetery. One person who comes to mind who has helped guide the work we have done is one of the founders of ‘Friends of Brooklyn Cemetery’, Linda Davis. She has helped restore, rebuild, and commemorate the cemetery grounds and the individuals that are laid to rest there. The Why is the justification and benefits of our work in the community, and the work that Ms. Linda and Friends of Brooklyn Cemetery have done aligns with ours; we want to help increase the visibility of Brooklyn Cemetery by commemorating the stories of the families who are buried in the cemetery. We’ve attempted to increase the visibility of Brooklyn through community events where we presented the results of our findings to living family members. The How is the types of geographic methodologies that we use to do our work, in this case data collection and the use of ArcGIS Story Maps.  We used ArcGIS to create maps of the cemetery and the residences of family members, giving a brief history of their lives.

In our research of the families buried in Brooklyn Cemetery, we decided to analyze the 7 largest families in the cemetery. My group was tasked with researching the Daniel family. We started our research by gathering data on just who was buried in our family plot, that of which we found in a directory of Brooklyn Cemetery created by Meriwether Rhoades. In the directory we found the names and birth/death dates of 10 individuals from the Daniel family. From there we began to collect data on the family members by using sources such as FamilySearch, FindAGrave, City Directories, and Census entries. We found data on family member’s residency, their relationship to the head of the residency, birth place, race, sex, marital status, occupation, literacy level, and more. Once we had gathered a satisfactory and complete amount of data on our family members, it was time to create a story map to help tell the individual stories of family members buried in the cemetery.

ArcGIS StoryMaps is a story authoring web-based application that allows you to share maps in the context of narrative text and other multimedia content. In general our class’ story maps all follow the same structure: an introduction of the family, a family tree showing different generations of family members that differentiates between those who are buried in the cemetery and those who aren’t, a map tour of the gravesites, family history over different years, and a spotlight on a specific family member. For the Daniel family, their history in Athens-Clarke county traces back to 1880, where Philip and Margaret Daniel’s marriage registration was found in FamilySearch. From there we found multiple years of census data that showed where certain family members lived, and even some death reports showing when family members passed away.  For example we learned the histories of Judge and Settie Daniel, 2 long time Athens- Clarke county residents. We were able to find multiple years of their family history including census records spanning 50+ years and marriage/death certificates. We were also able to find information on their children and grandchildren through census data.

In the grand scheme of my time in the course, I feel as though the work we have done in helping create visibility to Brooklyn Cemetery is truly valuable and important. By letting Brooklyn cemetery continue to be vulnerable to being forgotten due to no visibility by the community, these stories face the risk of being forgotten. Geographers can help increase visibility of the cemetery through creating maps and outreaching to the community to show their findings and garner more interest in telling and preserving these stories.  By doing this, we can create a memorialization of people’s histories who could be forgotten to time.
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by Madi McFarland

When I registered for Community GIS with Dr. Shannon earlier this spring, I didn’t give it too much thought. The class had an open seat, filled the last gap in my schedule, and would give me the final credits I needed to complete my certificate in Geographic Information Science. I did not expect my final geography course to fundamentally change the way I thought about my position as a student at the University of Georgia.

Coming into this class, GIS was a set of tools I was learning to use. I dutifully sat in front of the high performance computers during weekly lab periods and completed assignments accompanied by step-by-step instructions on how to present geographic data that I was mostly disconnected to. While it was fundamental for gaining skills in using programs like ArcGIS, it was often technical, abstract. This semester, I had the opportunity to become personally invested in the data. It wasn’t just about mapping features, it was about mapping lives, histories, and absences.

I found myself making regular trips to Brooklyn Cemetery, a historically Black burial ground quietly nestled west of the University of Georgia campus. The site is more akin to a hiking trail than what you might envision when you think of a cemetery. In place of the neatly manicured lawns and paved roads of nearby cemeteries like Oconee Hill, there are piles of brush and dusty dirt pathways. PVC pipes by patches of sunken ground denote the locations of unmarked graves. Brooklyn is maintained by a small group of dedicated stewards that serve as caretakers for the site and advocates for the families interred there, but apart from that, the city of Athens has seemingly forgotten about it. This is not by coincidence.
Katherine McKittrick’s paper “Plantation Futures” describes the legacy of the plantation- not just on a material scale, but as a conceptual framework that continues to manifest in structures of power that disenfranchise people of color to this day. These systems predominantly see minorities from low-income communities doing the bulk of the work for little pay, while a small number of people in charge profit. They can be incredibly difficult to escape, as they inherently enforce a dichotomy of poverty and power. After reading the paper, I began recognizing plantation structures that quietly persist all around us- prisons, agricultural industries, resorts, and even universities.

As a student at the University of Georgia, I’ve come to realize the city of Athens as one such plantation geography, shaped by a deep history of land dispossession and enslavement. Historically Black neighborhoods and cultural areas have faced decades of erasure and displacement, often at the hands of administrative action by the school. “Hot Corner”, located on the intersection Washington and Hull downtown, was once the most prosperous Black business district in the city. Black presence is still very much there, but it has changed shape through gentrification and expansion practices. Linnentown, a lively neighborhood along Baxter Street, was seized by the University of Georgia in the 1960s to make space for new residence halls. More recently, an on-campus renovation project at Baldwin Hall uncovered the remains of 105

individuals of African descent- likely those of enslaved people whose labor built the University. This discovery was tremendously mishandled by school administration, who attempted to quietly reinterred the remains at a historically segregated cemetery away from the eyes of the media and likely descendants.
Despite major displacements and mishandlings, it is important to recognize that Black life in Athens persists. “Cartographies of Black Presence: Mapping Praxis through Community Geography and Black Geographies” by Rachelle Berry et al. presents GIS as a powerful tool for preserving Black history and elevating Black futures. Rather than focusing solely on displacement, there is an opportunity to center livingness. As UGA affiliates working with the legacy of Brooklyn Cemetery, effectively doing so requires both a dedication to amplifying the stories of the people buried there and a commitment to repairing decades of broken trust between the University and Black Athens residents.

This class pushed me to confront my own positionality. I am not from Athens, I am not a person of color, and I have no personal ties to Brooklyn Cemetery, but as a student, I am a participant in a system that has long benefited from Black erasure. This recognition comes with responsibility. As outsiders, we must seek to engage with those whose histories have been suppressed and give them agency in how their spatial histories will be represented. Community mapping asks us to consider who we are in relation to a space, and what it means to work with communities, rather than just mapping on them. I now carry a deep awareness of how my skills can be used to not just represent geographies, but to advocate for the histories within them.

Madi McFarland is a fourth-year student at the University of Georgia. She is pursuing a dual Bachelors and Masters Degree in Ecology with a GIS certificate.

Keywords: plantation geography, cartographies of black presence, positionality​

by Liam England

Participating in the Community GIS course has been a rewarding experience. The nexus of the course is about how UGA students can use the technical tools and practices of the GIS field to connect with local history and tell the story of a place and a community – in our case, Brooklyn Cemetery, a historic Black burial ground here in Athens. Due to a lack of financial resources, the cemetery experienced a period of neglect beginning in the 1980s, but it is now being cared for by dedicated community members and the organization Friends of Brooklyn Cemetery. Our class has been contributing to this effort by working to understand and share the stories held within its grounds through the creation of online resources like storymaps.

Like many GIS courses that teach software and data analysis, this class provided me with opportunities to learn those skills. But what has really resonated with me, and for good reason, is the human side of this work. Visiting Brooklyn Cemetery for the first time definitely shifted my perspective and my expectations of what a cemetery can look like. Instead of a neat, orderly space with mowed grass and uniform headstones that I had pictured, it was a sprawling, wooded area with many graves marked only by PVC pipes, or not at all. Seeing the many types of markers representing past lives alongside visible signs of past neglect underscored the profound importance of our project. This contrast prompted me to think about how we, as temporary student researchers, can respectfully and accurately share the stories of people who have been memorialized in this space.

For the past couple of months, two other classmates and I have been researching the Horton family -- one of many families with plots in Brooklyn Cemetery -- to create a storymap about them. This involved trying to piece together details about their lives through census records and city directories. I personally found this research both worthwhile and reminiscent of my own genealogical explorations, and my group and I were able to learn more about the family in the process. One particularly interesting thing we found out was that descendants and relatives of the Horton family buried in Brooklyn Cemetery have resided in the same house in Athens since the 1940s, revealing a tangible link between the past and present beyond the cemetery grounds. However, outside the dry biographical details conveyed in public records, we don’t really know much who the Horton family was and what their lives were like. My group and I are hoping to have a conversation with the family members who still live in Athens and are trying to get in touch with them. Not only is this an important step in learning much more about the family, it is essential in undertaking this work to acknowledge that we are attempting to tell the story of a family that isn’t ours, and that our information is incomplete and perhaps inaccurate.

Creating the storymap had its technical challenges. Sometimes the limitations of the platform made it tricky to present the Horton family's story in the manner that we envisioned. Issues like these are an important lesson that while technology is powerful, it has its limits, and we need to be prepared to work around these limitations while ensuring that the integrity of the stories centered in our community-engaged work remains our priority. While modern technology has undeniably streamlined impactful participatory mapping actions like sharing locations and

information, this project highlighted the irreplaceable value of personal connection: each participant's positionality and the significance of the topic or area to them. Even with technological tools, community GIS fundamentally involves mapping people's stories and their connections to place, a task I believe inherently requires human connection, emotion, and empathy.

Visiting Brooklyn Cemetery later in the semester, after weeks of research, and standing in the area where members of the Horton family are buried, was a meaningful moment. These weren't just names on a page or on a tombstone anymore. This experience made it clear that our work in this course can turn data into really personal and meaningful narratives. I hope our work helps others learn more about the history within Brooklyn Cemetery, and I hope to continue being engaged in work that is not only personally interesting, but beneficial to the community after graduating from UGA.

Liam England is a third-year undergraduate at UGA majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Geography with a certificate in Geographic Information Science. He has been a part of CML since Fall 2024.

Keywords: positionality, Brooklyn Cemetery, research, Athens