Old Memphis Cemetery’s neglect spans decades.
By Brice Claypoole
Original Air Date: May 29, 2026
Host: Last week, WSLR brought you news of vandalism at the Old Memphis Cemetery in Palmetto. Now we bring you the bigger-picture story about history repeating itself. WSLR News reporter Brice Claypoole investigated and found a long history of neglect.
The historically Black cemetery is located just one block outside Palmetto city limits.
Brice Claypoole: Founded in 1904, the Old Memphis Cemetery was used for over seven decades. It’s a landmark deeply rooted in local heritage and community. But it also has a history of neglect.
When I arrived at the cemetery on Saturday afternoon, it looked nothing like the forsaken site I’d seen a few days prior. A large community work party had cleared out overgrown brush, cut down gangly weeds and picked up piles of litter. It was an impressive showing, coordinated by the county, non-profits and hundreds of individuals.
The clean-up was sparked by the May 13 announcement that the Manatee County Sheriff’s office was investigating extensive vandalism at the site. Numerous vaults were apparently smashed open, others spray-painted with the names “Trump” and “Ron DeSantis.”
Largely unreported by the media was that much of the damage may not have been vandalism at all and that it occurred over an extended period of time. Manatee Sheriff’s PIO Randy Warren told WSLR that, while the spray-painting was clearly vandalism, some of the smashed vaults could have also been damaged by storms, erosion and “shifting soil.”
BC: Palmetto resident Betty Sailes Rhodes agrees that neglect has been pervasive for years.
BC: Why did it not get noticed and taken care of before?
Betty Rhodes: Okay. I’m going to tell you. You understand? That is a Black cemetery. You can read between the lines.
BC: This has all happened before, going back decades.
Most sources agree that the three-acre plot became full in 1977. Shortly after, county documents referred to the cemetery as “in a state of decay” and noted that the owner could not be located. In 1988, the site was declared neglected and the county was allowed to maintain it under a newly amended state law. An Advisory Committee on Neglected Cemeteries was set up as well.
On a sunny Saturday morning in the Spring of 1989, Memphis residents gathered at the cemetery with chainsaws and weed whackers. The day of sawing and scrubbing was followed by smaller events over the years, but momentum eventually faded. The committee tasked with preserving the cemetery was chronically underfunded, and the site fell back into disrepair.
Charles Smith served as the District 2 County Commissioner from 2014 to 2018 and is challenging sitting commissioner Amanda Ballard to reclaim the seat. While he claims that the cemetery improved, he noted that the neglected cemeteries committee had become far less active.
Charles Smith
Charles Smith: The committee was old themselves. They didn’t have the resources or the tools or the know how. Most of them couldn’t walk themselves. Their hearts were in the right place, but their legs were not.
BC: Residents say things went downhill after Smith’s departure from the county commission and that recent hurricanes incurred significant damage. So how, after years of neglect, did the community finally mobilize again?
It started with Memphis resident Chris Green, who began tending to the cemetery several months ago.
Green says that when he began visiting the cemetery in January of this year, the vandalism was already there.
Chris Green: If they’ve been like that from the beginning of the year, then it’s obvious that they had been like that probably even the year before that.
BC: Green showed the damage to Palmetto Mayor Dan West. Here’s West.
Palmetto Mayor Dan West
Dan West: It was back in late February when I first ventured into that cemetery. I was visiting some people in the city, and I just happened to go on down 2nd Avenue, and I saw the cemetery, and I knew it was there, and then I drove through. As I drove through I was like, “Oh my gosh, what in the world?” I’ve lived here my whole life, and I love our history, and this is not how it’s supposed to be taken care of.
BC: Since the cemetery is just outside of Palmetto city limits, West reported the damage to Ballard. Ballard says that plans to visit the cemetery with West fell through. She adds that she didn’t understand from what West told her that there was vandalism or severe decay at the cemetery.
Photo by Brice Claypoole
Then, on Mother’s Day, Betty Sailes Rhodes got a call from her sister that the overgrowth had become so bad that their mother’s grave was unreachable.
Rhodes contacted Tracey Washington, President of the Manatee County NAACP. Washington in turn reported it to Ballard, who notified the sheriff’s office, sparking the investigation. Ballard also secured $100,000 in funding from the county to pay for a fence, lighting and potentially cameras on site.
Tracey Washington
As the vandalism story broke, many blamed racism.
On the flip side, many residents expressed great joy and gratitude that their community was able to organize so effectively once the problems at Old Memphis came to light.
The looming question after so many decades of false promises is whether this time will be different. Smith is skeptical.
Amanda Ballard | Still shot WFLA
CS: Those individuals out there, bless their souls, cannot vote and cannot write campaign checks, so they were left and neglected willfully. And there should not be a narrative that they came to be Good Samaritans. No. They were not Good Samaritans. They were forced to do what they did. They were forced to spend $100,000 from years of neglect, and we’re not happy about it.
BC: Rhodes disagrees. She says they’re galvanized to keep up the momentum.
BR: Oh, the event today was wonderful! I’ve got to give a shout-out to the county. The county really did their job.
What really brought tears to my eyes was to see so many people united together out there—Black, white, Hispanic. I loved that so much it brought tears to my eyes. I really think that, now, they’re gonna take care of Old Memphis Cemetery.
For WSLR News, this is Brice Claypoole.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.