New Jersey state Sen. Shirley K. Turner and state Assembly Members Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Anthony Verelli, and Dan Benson have pushed through two supplemental appropriation bills granting $400,000 to the Locust Hill African Cemetery Museum.
The funds will be used to renovate and set up operations for the Locust Hill African Cemetery Museum. The Locust Hill Cemetery, located at 73 Hart Ave. in Trenton, N.J., is the city’s largest segregated African American burial ground — it is where some 200 Trenton citizens from the 1860s are interred, at least 10 of whom are Civil War veterans.
The idea of establishing the museum was promoted and organized by the 6th Regiment United States Colored Troops reenactors. Members of the 6th Regiment USCT created the Locust Hill Project with the aim of restoring the building on the site and making it an interpretive center/museum. They also want the headstones in the adjoining cemetery repaired and maintained.