How Authorities Helped Developers Erase an Historic Black Cemetery in Virginia

Original investigation into Microsoft’s 2014-15 Mecklenburg County, Virginia data center expansion, which found the historic Moseley Cemetery. Documents the public-notice failure, 37 graves excavated in poor condition in spring 2015, descendants never contacted. The excavation report promised a marker naming the dead; per the reporter’s own account (“We drove slowly through the cemetery, looking for a sign. We did not find one”), no marker was ever installed. “Assorted bones” is what a Chase City clerk read aloud from a paper on file in the town office, not text on a physical marker. Used as a national structural parallel to the Hampton, GA situation — not a claim that the same disturbance has occurred at O’Neal.

Additional detail confirmed 2026-07-28 (approval-brief correction pass): the county’s consultant, Jones, actively worked to reverse a favorable eligibility finding rather than merely following minimum process. Verbatim: once one archaeologist found the site eligible for the historic registry, “she and her colleagues still wanted the eligibility for the historic registry designation nixed, so they sent the report to another archaeologist, seeking a second opinion.” Jones also wrote that “THEY need [to] find additional help and work 7 days a week until it is done,” and called skipping forensic analysis on the remains “a huge money and time savings for us” (“WAYNE, this is a GOOD thing!”). The state’s final archaeological record on file concluded the cemetery “is no longer eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places,” specifically because it had been relocated — the destruction of the site is what disqualified it from the protection meant to prevent that.