The Denton County St. John’s Cemetery Association (SJCA) is a community-led preservation organization dedicated to securing access to, protecting the sacred burial grounds within, and restoring the cultural memory of the historic St. John’s Cemetery, the last remains of one of Denton County’s earliest post-emancipation Black communities.

The SJCA was established in June 2025 by local advocates committed to overseeing and assuming maintenance and memorial care responsibilities of the historic St John’s cemetery after its certification by the Texas Historical Commission. Unfortunately, adjacent land owners remain either completely unresponsive or unwilling to facilitate the reasonable access necessary to facilitate meaningful care of the cemetery in accordance with state laws so preservation efforts are stalled pending possible litigaion.  

Collectively, the St John’s Cemetery Association’s aims to:

1. Secure regular and reasonable access to the St John’s Cemetery for SJCA members in order to facilitate: evaluations by historic preservation experts; the development and execution of an effective restoration and conservation plan; use of ground penetrating radar to officially determine the full extent of burials at the site; installation of better security and perimeter barriers to prevent additional degradation by trespassing livestock from adjacent lands.

2. Facilitate further research into the existence and mysterious disappearance of the St John’s community.

3. Facilitate opportunities for reasonable public access to St John’s cemetery to ensure community education and support SJCA preservation efforts.

4. Identify additional descendants of the St John’s community and those buried in the historic St John’s Cemetery to further support historic research into the community itself, its mysterious disappearance, and the historic events which led to the cemetery becoming landlocked and forgotten for nearly a century.