Westlawn Memorial is where many Liberia and Danie (Dania) residents put their loved ones to rest. This gravesite is home to many pioneers such as Leola Collins, Richard Collins, “street legends” and many more. In recent years there has been a push to remove confederate street names in Hollywood, but what if I told you that east of Hollywood in Dania Beach stood a secret that only the locals may know. A once integrated cemetery where Black and white people would bury their loved ones then became segregated by the train tracks. White people didn’t want their loved ones to be buried next to Black people’s loved ones due to “fear of their spirits integrating from beyond the grave” said former Black residents. What some white Dania residents did at the time was sickening. They ended up making it mandatory for Black people to dig up their loved ones and move them across the west side of the tracks, some Black folks did not know where their loved ones were moved to due to white folks digging up Black dead bodies and doing who knows what with them. It is one of the racist stories that many people do not talk about due to the trauma and pain it inflicted upon Danie and Liberia Black residents.
