On MLK Day, UTRGV students join Edinburg Juneteenth Committee to clean historic cemetery
EDINBURG — Despite the overnight freezing temperatures, volunteers and city officials worked together on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to clean Restlawn Cemetery in what some would consider perfect outdoor weather. Bishop Michael Smith opened the program with a prayer and a few words about MLK Day at 8 a.m.“We thank you, God, for everybody that is participating to beautify this cemetery,” Smith said. “Bless the hands that are working out here, bless everybody that is participating.”Smith’s wife, Sharon Smith, said the Juneteenth Committee decided on cleaning up Restlawn Cemetery as a way to celebrate MLK Day during one of their monthly meetings. Cortina-Matos was looking to get students involved in a community service project, which coincided with Walker-Hernandez’s idea of cleaning up the cemetery. In the 1920s, Dora Walker, who worked as a cook for a board member for Hillcrest Cemetery, which is located next to what today is Restlawn Cemetery, asked her boss if there was a lot where they could bury the dead.
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