JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News first reported about Macedonia African Methodist Church cemetery two years ago. Now, historians are asking the city to conduct more testing to find unmarked graves before selling the property.
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Historian Kirk Canaday has made it his mission to make sure the legacy of slaves buried in a wooded lot on Medlock Bridge Road doesn’t get forgotten.
“Instead of preserving, the city has basically desecrated,” Canaday told Channel 2′s investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln.
Canday says the City of John’s Creek hasn’t kept its end of the bargain after acquiring the Macedonia African Methodist Church Cemetery by eminent domain in 2020. The city purchased the two-acre property for $52,000 in an effort to preserve the graves after reports of vandalism.
“The older part of this cemetery doesn’t have headstones; a lot of these folks went into the ground without the benefit of a casket,” Canaday said.
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Canaday says after the sale, the city told the John’s Creek Historical Society it would do proper testing to locate unmarked graves.
“They said we didn’t have to do any of the archaeological, genealogical and notify the descendants because we’re not going to sell it, we’re going to develop it, protect it,” said Canaday.
And now he fears the testing will never happen after the city announced plans to sell the cemetery.
“They haven’t held up their end of the bargain,” he said.
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There are at least 53 marked graves and dozens of unmarked graves. Canaday believes many are outside of the property line near neighboring homes.
“I think it was maybe 100 to 150 more graves than what you’re talking about,” Canaday said.
The city of Johns Creek told Lincoln it took over the property in 2020 because it was in severe disrepair due to vandals and items being dumped on the site. Since 2021, the city says it’s maintained the grounds and added fencing. It’s also hired consultants and completed its strategic plan.
It continued in a statement, in part saying: The City has realized it can never give the cemetery the same amount of love that the descendants of those buried there could. In keeping with the options allowable under State Law (O.C.G.A. § 36-37-6 (a) and (f)), the City decided to seek input from the families of those buried in the cemetery, the larger Johns Creek community, and any other party that may be interested in purchasing the property to further preserve and protect the cemetery.
The City has directly emailed known descendants and potentially interested organizations, placed an advertisement in the local newspaper, posted a sign on the property, and placed a notice on the City website asking any individual or organization to share their interest and present any written plan regarding the future preservation and protection of the Cemetery no later than Monday, April 7, 2025. Of note, any sale of the cemetery will not change the protected status of the cemetery nor the right of the heirs of those buried in the cemetery to access the cemetery. The grave sites and the headstones continue to be the property of their descendants.
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