From the April 3, 2011, Aiken (SC) Standard.
A cleanup was going on at the Pine Lawn Cemetery in town, once called the Aiken Colored Cemetery. Former slaves, soldiers, paupers, Reconstruction leaders and black leaders were buried there over the years.
The place is now called the Pine Lawn memorial Gardens and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
One of the graves is that of Pemeli Peeples, who died October 1918. He was a member of the 369th Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division, a black regiment from New York during World War I.
Dr. Maggi Morehouse of the University of South Carolina-Aiken, knows a lot about the unit because her father was a white officer with the regiment which fought in World War I and World War II in the Pacific. They were known as the Harlem Hellfighters
During World War I, they were sent to Spartanburg, SC, but there was a riot and they were run out of town. Later, they were federalized and inducted into the US Army and sent to France to fight for the French Army where they spent 191 days in the trenches.
Peeple's death came two months before the unit was relieved after Armistice Day. It is not known how he came to be buried in Aiken unless perhaps he had relatives in the city.
An Interesting Story. --Cooter
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