More than a dozen headstones at Evergreen Cemetery were painted over with blue paint at the historic cemetery — the city’s first major municipal graveyard for Black residents.

Ironically, William Payne Loyd, the man who produced ceramic headstones for so many graves is buried in Covington Cemetery in Hill County, Texas, beneath a granite marker. He died in 1886.

BUT NOW HERE AT REST UNDER THE BLUE SKIES OF HEAVEN. THE NAMES OF THESE UNION CIVIL WAR VETERANS ARE FOREVER INSCRIBED IN GRANITE HEADSTONES BY THE VA.