Black Juneteenth advocate’s remains missing, family sues

A Black family is suing a San Diego, Calif., cemetery for misplacing the body of their father, who was a staunch advocate for commemorating Juneteenth in his community.

For decades, Sidney Cooper tirelessly promoted Juneteenth celebrations as the informal “Mayor of Imperial Avenue” in San Diego, near a slew of businesses he owned.

When he died in 2001 at age 71, he was interred at Greenwood Memorial Park and Mortuary — or so his family thought.

But 20 years after his death, when his wife, Thelma, was being buried after dying in March, cemetery officials discovered the grave was empty.

“I was absolutely distraught,” the couple’s daughter, Lana Cooper-Jones, said of the moment she learned her father’s body was missing. “It was like losing my father again, as well as my mom.”

The Coopers sued the cemetery on Friday, coinciding with Juneteenth weekend and the Cooper Family Foundation Juneteenth Freedom Festival held Saturday in the city’s Memorial Park. They want the cemetery to find their father’s remains and pay his children compensatory damages.

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Greenwood Cemetery, which informed the family of the error, said it is working on the issue and noted that its ownership and management had changed since the mistake took place.

“While the placement of this family’s loved one occurred over 20 years ago under previous ownership and management, we recently discovered an issue with placement and are diligently working to confirm the placement of the loved one,” the cemetery said in a statement. “Our hope is to reunite the loved ones as intended as soon as possible.”

Cooper’s family created the foundation after he died so as to continue his legacy of expanding celebrations of June 19, the day in 1865 when word of slavery’s end finally reached Galveston, Tex., more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that freed them.

President Biden declared it an official federal holiday in 2021.

The family attended a graveside service when Cooper died and were not there when the casket was lowered, Cooper-Jones said.

“We do this every year to honor our father,” she told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Now, we don’t even know where he is.”

With News Wire Services