Cemetery Plan
In our efforts to obtain information from former residents of the plantation the group held its first Judd Hill Reunion in May of 2000. Bringing home hundreds of past residents, the committee in collaboration with the Arkansas State University - Delta Studies Center collected oral history interviews from residents of their life on the plantation. During this large gathering, residents reclaimed the only two African-American cemeteries as well as the lives of our ancestors who cleared and work the land that they now call a final resting place.
Cemetery Continuation Efforts
Since reclaiming the Judd Hill and Tulot Cemeteries in May 2000, The Judd Hill Memorial Scholarship Fund Inc. Committee continues to research the burial locations at both cemeteries. Through the years vandalism and agriculture encroachment have caused many headstones to be either removed or destroyed and today many graves are still unidentified or unmarked and beyond the original boundaries of the cemeteries.
The Judd Hill Scholarship Fund Inc. Committee has worked diligently since May of 2000 to research and document both cemeteries. In May of 2004, the Judd Hill Memorial Scholarship Fund, Inc. applied for and received a cemetery preservation minigrant from the Arkansas Humanities Council. This grant allowed the committee to do research of funeral homes and county records for the purpose of locating original boundaries. The Committee also obtained services from the Arkansas Archeological survey in the location of unmarked graves, mapping and remote sensing which detected graves inside and outside of the boundaries. The information gathered during this grant period will help us to continue our efforts in getting the historically significant Judd Hill and Tulot Cemeteries on the National Historical Register.
