A cemetery has come under fire after refusing to sell a burial plot to the family of a deceased sheriff’s deputy because of his skin color.
The incident took place in Louisiana where 55-year-old Darrell Semien, an Allen Parish Sheriff’s Deputy who worked in law enforcement for 15 years, passed away following a battle with cancer.
After the man’s wife, Karla, reached out to Oaklin Springs Cemetery in an attempt to buy the plot where she could bury her husband, she was told his remains couldn’t be buried there because of his skin color.
As the devastated woman explained, the representative she talked to told her that people of color are not allowed to be buried at their cemetery.
“I met with the lady out there and she said she could NOT sell me a plot because the cemetery is a WHITES ONLY cemetery,” Karla wrote in her viral Facebook post.
“She even had paperwork on a clipboard showing me that only white human beings can be buried there. She stood in front of me and all my kids. Wow what a slap in the face.”
After the incident went viral, outraged members of the public blasted the cemetery and their whites-only policy.
Apologizing for the inconvenience, Oaklin Springs Cemetery Association’s president, Creig Vizena, explained how one of their contracts dictated that only “white human beings” could be buried at the cemetery.
As he insisted, however, he didn’t know that such policy, which has since been abolished, existed even though it had been enforced by the cemetery since the 1950s.
“It never came up. I take full responsibility of that. I’ve been the president for several years. I take full responsibility for not reading the bylaws,” he claimed in an interview with NBC affiliate KPLC.
While Vizena eventually offered to give the deputy’s family a burial plot free of charge, Karla turned down the offer and went on to plan for her husband to be buried at Oberlin’s Sonnier Cemetery.
“To be told this is like we were nothing. You know, [like] he was nothing. He put his life on the line for them,” the widow told KPLC as she fought back tears.
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Replaced!