When Veronica Spears read the letter, she began to shake.
"What's wrong?" her husband asked.
At the time, she said, she couldn't find the words to respond.
"The letter said they found out that my grandfather had a brother that was in a reformation institution," she later told NPR in an interview. "And he passed away at the age of 12. We never knew."
Spears' family is one of 16 that researchers with Georgetown University's Center for Youth Justice have linked to children who died at the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children in Cheltenham, Md. The center has been working since February to identify children who died at 40 reform schools and youth detention centers across the country, as well as any surviving family members, as part of its Forgotten Children Initiative.
To date, the researchers have identified the graves of over 1,000 children across 29 states. The largest burial site is located near the House of Reformation, now the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center. More than 230 Black boys were found buried in the woods across the street from the facility.
The small headstones are easy to miss, especially in the fall, when they seem to sink into the fallen leaves. A few pieces of trash from a nearby worksite mix with the leaves.
Chuck Copeland, Spears' cousin, hiked through tall trees and thorny brush one morning in late September. A pastor who lives about two hours away, he leaned in to read one of the headstones.
"He didn't count for nothing. He meant nothing to them," he said, grimacing. Then he read, "Thirteen years old from Baltimore, Mark Davis, 1885."
Established in 1870, the House of Reformation, where Mark Davis died, was the first juvenile detention facility for Black children in the American South, according to the Georgetown researchers. It was created to get Black youth out of adult prisons. Children as young as 5 years old were incarcerated for criminal offenses, as well as a number of non-criminal reasons, including being poor, homeless or orphaned, researchers found.
While there, the boys were forced to work without food and disciplined by white guards with a "brass-studded belt," according to a report from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. In the 1920s, the boys were leased to neighboring farms, with the institution taking most, if not all, of their pay. They were also forced to work in the reformatory's broom factory in conditions described by Baltimore City labor union investigators in 1926 as a "firetrap," according to the report.
The Georgetown researchers have not discovered why Spears' great-uncle, Arthur Hamilton, was incarcerated in the institution, and they have not found his remains at the burial ground. The family was told he died of tuberculosis in 1917.
Marc Schindler was a senior official at the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services when the state rediscovered the burial ground in 2024. When he went to work for Georgetown University, he continued researching similar sites across the country. His team has so far found graves tied to 40 institutions, from Salem, Ore., to Augusta, Maine.
Some of the graves are next to juvenile detention centers still in operation.
"I'm hopeful that in states around the country, people will step forward and we can see an appropriate response to what I think is unquestionably a national tragedy," Schindler said.
As states learn about these burial sites, some state lawmakers around the country have begun looking at options for restitution. In Florida, lawmakers established a $20 million fund for survivors who attended an infamous reform school that closed in 2011. In Arkansas, officials created a memorial to honor 21 Black boys who died in a fire at a correctional facility in 1959.
This year, Maryland lawmakers created a commission to research and identify all the children buried in Cheltenham. The commission, housed in the state attorney general's office, includes family members of the children, who will weigh in on the future of the site and how the state should make amends for how it treated the children at the reform institution.
"Understanding this history is tremendously important, but understanding how this history connects to our current practices is almost probably more important," state Senator Will Smith, who sponsored the bill creating the commission, told NPR.
Smith pointed to Maryland laws that result in hundreds of children being charged as adults every year. He said accounting for the state's past involves changing those kinds of laws. And this year, the state legislature took a step toward that goal. After more than a decade of pressure from advocacy groups, lawmakers passed Smith's bill removing some offenses, such as firearm possession, from the list of charges that automatically send young people to be tried in adult court. That change took effect this month.
Smith credits a trip the legislature's Black caucus took to the gravesite in Cheltenham with convincing lawmakers to support the change.
When Spears and Copeland visited the gravesite that day in September, they eventually reached a place where there were no more headstones. What's left are rows of gray cinder blocks — over 200, with no names or dates. Researchers believe Arthur Hamilton is buried somewhere in this part of the woods. Spears said she believes it, too.
"I don't have any proof, no," she said, placing her hand over her chest. "I felt it in my chest. I felt a heaviness. I knew then he was crying out to all of us — they all were — to let us know we're here and we were mistreated."
She pursed her lips and looked at the ground. After a while, Spears, Copeland and other family members gathered in a circle among the cinder blocks. They were all silent until Copeland, the pastor, began speaking. He lamented the history he was taught. The history he was not taught. The betrayal he feels.
"The first thing I learned in school to memorize was the Pledge of Allegiance," he said. Then he raised his hands, gesturing toward the graves around him. "Liberty and justice for all." He shook his head as his hands landed with a thud at his sides.
After another moment of silence, Copeland led the family in a prayer.
"Thank you for this opportunity to remember our uncle Arthur Hamilton," he said.
Copeland said he wants the children to know they aren't forgotten anymore.
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