 Preservation is a revolutionary act. They kept saying that this whole building is an eyesore, but I knew it was a historic building. I knew it. Reading Booker T. Washington's words and being able to directly link it to rural communities like this on a county road, the impact cannot be overstated. As an early cemetery constructed in the age of segregation, burials were also segregated. There could potentially be up to a thousand people buried in this area. There are only a few headstones, and over the years, even in recent years, those have been broken. Histories really shouldn't be lost because it really provides us with a sense of direction and a sense of progress of how far we've come. I picked this spot just because of the history of it, with it being Tallahassee's oldest public cemetery, up until the point where it was fulled. It was segregated. They didn't really care about slaves then, and you can tell now, as time went by, it's kind of like nothing has changed, like they still don't care about them really. This was never a model where we were looking to create new trades. People who were going to go directly into the field of preservation trades, we just wanted architects who understood history and preservation better. A little part of me wishes that I was born back then so I could get to know them, because most of the people buried there, like teachers, lawyers, doctors, some of them really built Houston. It means a lot to me to know that I can have a vision in my head, and then I can put my hands on certain things and bring that vision to life. For the students to enter those spaces, you see that connection happen. So not just to the building itself, but to the history that that building tells. And if our stories and our history is gonna be mainstream history, then it starts with places like this. And documenting places like this, because this is our history. Over the summer, I had the privilege of working with the National Trust and the Hope Crew to help bring a public face to the site. He was one of the first certified black teachers in the state of Florida. Also, he provided housing for most of the low income black people in Tallahassee. Cemetery's are examples of architecture. Architects are involved in the design of these public spaces, so we should also be involved in the maintenance of them. Automatically, this makes differences in our society. Use that brand new book as a guide for your building and how you want things to look. It just looks like open land, like which it looks like now. It don't look like a cemetery, nor feels like one. It's not my first time cleaning a grave. I can now put together methods that I learned from Hope Crew and to clean in my mom's grave. To have a student over 120 years later assisting in the restoration of that schoolhouse is a testament to the seriousness that we've always had as a people as it relates to education. I want this to become a reality before I leave here because you know I'm 73 years young and I really want to see my baby. I want to see my baby saved. Just talking about now getting the chills in my body, just thinking about it.