HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The remains of 39 African Americans were reinterred Thursday in a ceremony at Evergreen Negro Cemetery near Fifth Ward.

The cemetery, which contains the remains of war veterans, formerly enslaved people, and others, was founded in the late 1800s, according to the Evergreen Negro Cemetery Restoration Project.

“We’ve been working on this for three years, getting the individuals reinterred back into this sacred space,” Zanitra Wells, who has family buried at the cemetery, said. “We are just proud to have these people back into this rightful pace because when people put them here that’s where they expected them to stay and not be desecrated and they were moved so we wanted to right that wrong and put them back in that place where they are supposed to be.”

The agency says the cemetery suffered as Houston grew, especially in the mid-20th century, during the construction of Interstate 10 near Lockwood Drive.

RELATED: Historic black cemetery in Houston in need of cleanup

Evergreen was bisected during that time, which the agency explains forced the relocation of bodies to other cemeteries in the area. In 2023, during a METRO construction project, it was discovered that some bodies weren’t actually interred in other cemeteries.

The cemetery is one of the roughly 4,000 historic black cemeteries across Texas that were in substandard conditions. During a visit there back in 2018, ABC13 saw the cemetery had chip bags, overgrown brush, and broken headstones.

In the years since the 39 bodies were discovered, the Evergreen Negro Cemetery Restoration Project says there are likely hundreds more buried in the area, including underneath Lockwood Drive.

“They are not forgotten, and I want to know where they are and share it with the rest of our family,” Brenda Brown, who has family buried in the cemetery, said.

Lisa Jedkins, the founding member of Project RESPECT, an organization tasked with providing the deceased with a proper burial place, told Eyewitness News in 2018 that the final phase will turn the cemetery into an outdoor museum where people can learn about Houston’s forgotten figures.

SEE ALSO: Restoration process moves forward for Fifth Ward’s historic Evergreen Negro Cemetery

“We are coming together as one, you saw all the different people who is coming as a team to tell the history of this area and their stories,” Jedkins said.