A community group in Irving is asking for the public's help to preserve a Texas historical landmark that's known as one of the oldest slave cemeteries in the state.

“Somebody asked me this morning, ‘Why are you so concerned about dead people?’”. These people are not dead to me. They’re alive to me. Their spirits are alive. It seemed as if the souls of all these black people cried out to me, ‘Anthony, don’t let them do this to our final resting place. We suffered enough in life. Don’t have our final resting place be desecrated like this and let us suffer in death, too.” -Anthony Bond via NBC 5 DFW

Shelton's Bear Creek Cemetery has 189 graves, some pre-date the Civil War, located at the interchange of Highways 161 and 183 near DFW Airport and its been overrun with brush that the current set of volunteers and caretakers are unable to keep up with according to NBC 5 DFW. The cemetery was designated as a historic site by the Texas Historical Commission in 2000.

If you're interested in helping, you can contact Anthony Bond who represents the Irving chapter of The NAACP at 214-830-6719 and he asks that you bring gloves and tools to help out.

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