\u201cIt\u2019s a tragedy, of course. It\u2019s a travesty because it reflects our history both as African Americans and as a city,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n
He pointed to the residue left on the marble where the plaques once hung, describing it as a painful reminder of the loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere had to be some effort to get them off,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/dallas-freedman-cemetery-memorial-damage-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tNBC 5 News<\/p>\n
\t\t\tNBC 5 News<\/p>\n
A missing plaque at the Dallas Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial.<\/p>\n
Though the bronze statues by artist David Newton remain intact, Glover said the stolen plaques held unique cultural and emotional significance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re personal,\u201d Glover said. \u201cOne of them was from David to his mother, so they have a personal meaning to the community and reflective poems.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas resident Bubba Chenault said he first noticed missing plaques weeks before the theft was reported.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 12, he shared photos on X, tagging Dallas Parks and Recreation to alert them to the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt bothers me that the city, first of all, doesn\u2019t take care of historical places like this,\u201d Chenault said.<\/p>\n
Chenault\u2019s September photos still showed two of the poems on the far left side of the memorial, but by October, they were also gone.<\/p>\n
He said the city\u2019s recent installation of surveillance cameras and reduced park hours felt like an afterthought.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it is a bad look,\u201d Chenault said.<\/p>\n
The Dallas Parks and Recreation Department told NBC 5 in a statement that it is unclear exactly when the plaques were removed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDallas Park and Recreation is aware of the community\u2019s concerns about the memorial plaques removed from Freedman\u2019s Cemetery. It is unclear when the plaques were removed, and Dallas Police is conducting its investigation into possible vandalism,\u201d the department’s Deputy Director M. Renee Johnson said in a statement. \u201cFreedman\u2019s is a historic and cultural site of great importance to our park system and to our city. The Department is working with City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture to replace the plaques. We also are collaborating with local historians and historical and preservation groups that have generational and deep-rooted ties to Freedman\u2019s Cemetery.\u00a0 \u00a0We appreciate the public\u2019s support as Dallas Park and Recreation works to restore this respected space.\u201d<\/p>\n
A surveillance camera tower now overlooks the site, and a new sign and chain lock have been added to help prevent future vandalism.<\/p>\n
The site now has reduced opening hours at 8 a.m. and closing at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historic Dallas memorial honoring formerly enslaved Black Americans has been vandalized, leaving community members heartbroken and demanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,581,104,103],"class_list":["post-6113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-county","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}