Friends of Pleasant Garden will be cleaning up the historic African-American cemetery in february. The public is invited to join in the efforts, from 9am to 4pm on all four saturdays (february 4, 11, 18, 25).

Off a tiny alley called Rowe Road in the Shepherd Hills/Ridgeside neighborhood, just east of the crest of Shallowford Road, the cemetery is easy to miss because all you can see is privet.

Founded in 1890, the cemetery is the burial site for many of the Chattanooga's early African-American community leaders, as well as Ed Johnson, the black man who was hung by a lynch mob on the Walnut Street Bridge in 1906, and two of the Scottsboro Boys.

Over the last 35 years the cemetery has become more and more isolated on the east side of Missionary Ridge, and has fallen into serious disrepair. On 16 october 1999, a hundred local residents worked together to begin reclaiming the cemetery, but Mother Nature never stops. It is again overgrown with small trees, privet, weeds and vines. Some headstones and park benches have been damaged by the vegetation's incessant growth.

Local citizens, led by project director LaFrederick Thirkill, are organizing this year's cleanup effort prior to the 100th anniversary of Ed Johnson's mob murder.