Darrell Semien: Black cop denied burial at 'Whites only' Louisiana cemetery, family says it was a 'slap in the face'
OBERLIN, LOUISIANA: A family in Allen Parish was forced to bury their loved one further away from home as he was allegedly rejected burial on account of his skin color. This took place in Oaklin Springs Cemetery in Oberlin. “It was just so much a slap in the face, a punch in the gut. It was just belittling him. You know that we can’t bury him because he’s Black,” said Karla Semien, the widow of 55-year-old Darrell Semien, a former Allen Parish sheriff's deputy and Reeves police officer. Semien died on Sunday, January 24, after battling colon cancer. When Darrell's family tried to buy a burial plot on Tuesday, January 26, close to their home, his skin color reportedly became a matter of importance. The Semiens called the Oaklin Springs Cemetery and met with the woman who sold plots.
Karla said, “First me and one of my other sons got out of the car when she drove up, and he’s White, and she said she was sorry for our loss, and I told her, ‘Thank you'. And before I could say anything else, the rest of them started coming out of the car, and she looked at them, and then she looked at me and says, ‘We’re going to have to have a discrepancy.’ She said, 'We’re not going to be able to sell you a plot.'” Karla added, "It was in their by-laws that the cemetery was 'Whites only'."
Since the 1950s, Oaklin Springs Cemetry contract only allowed "remains of White human beings", even though the contract was signed by everyone who buys a plot, the cemetery board claimed that they never noticed it before. The cemetery board eliminated the word “White” from its contract in an emergency meeting. "When that meeting was over it was like a weight lifted off of me," said H Creig Vizena, the cemetery board president.
"I’m sorry. I have no better explanation for it than that,” he said and added, “I can’t answer a question that I don’t know the answer to. I refuse to speculate on it. I just know that it was wrong and now it’s right.” The woman who was denied the family space does not work for them anymore. “I apologized, and I’m still apologizing to those people. I am so sorry that this happened,” Vizena said. He visited the family as soon as he heard what happened. He was under the impression that the contract was legally binding through the courthouse, so he told the Semiens, “I can’t sell you a plot, but I can give you one of my four plots.” However, his offer was turned down.
Vizena says he is now convinced that if such discrepancy could be overlooked for so long in Oberlin, there is likely similar “racist” language being used elsewhere. “Check y’all records. If there’s any kind of stupid verbiage like this - contracts, ordinances, please change it,” Vizena said. “We can never change as a country until we wipe that stuff out. There is no room for that.” Even though no family who goes to Oaklin Springs Cemetery will be denied burial for their race again, the Simiens are sure it hasn’t happened before. “It’s not possible,” argued Darrel’s daughter Kimberly Semien. “If that cemetery had been there that long, that many years, I’m sure. I mean people die every day, and Oberlin has a lot of colored people out here. I know there had to be family who went out there.”
Regardless, the denial was enough for the family to search a plot elsewhere. They said that their first question was, “Are Black people allowed to be buried in your cemetery?” Though the Oaklin Springs Cemetery contract allows all colors now, the Semien family said they’ll never feel welcome here because of how they were treated. “His main duty was to protect and serve,” Kimberly said of her father. “He didn’t put his badge on and say, ‘I’m only going to protect the Blacks because they’re Blacks. I’m just leaving White people out of it.’ No. He protected and served everybody no matter what the color is.”
“People need to know. It’s just not right,” said Karla. “For the rest of my kids’ life, they are not going to hear anything. Any apologies. They’re not going to hear anything that anybody says except my dad couldn’t be buried there because he’s Black. That’s the only thing that’s going to stick in their heads for the rest of their life and mine too.”
Darrell’s funeral and burial arrangements are set for Saturday, January 30, at the Sonnier Cemetery in Oberlin.