The story of Vicksburg’s largest African-American cemetery is being captured on film and will be available for the public to see by year’s end.

The Beulah Cemetery Restoration Committee has commissioned Jackson-based Cam Cam Video Productions to produce a 20-minute documentary on its private graveyard established in 1884 by the Vicksburg Tabernacle No. 19 Independent Order of Brothers and Sisters of Love and Charity.

“While it’s not the first time for the story to be told, it is the first time we’re having this recorded, and have it as a DVD so that our community and visitors and tourists can come out here and get the story on this historic place,” said committee secretary Karen Frederick, who spoke on behalf of the committee because president Pearline Williams is out of town. “Beulah is an African-American history in itself, and the people (buried) here need to have their stories told. This is our way of doing that.”

The documentary will focus on the history of the 126-year-old cemetery, as well as its current state and restoration efforts.

The committee enlisted Clinton author and poet J. Moffett Walker to narrate the story, which will include interviews with locals who are connected to the cemetery.

“I was very impressed when I realized this was an African-American cemetery,” Walker, 71, said. “I didn’t know the cemetery existed. I knew that before African-Americans had their own cemetery, they were buried in white cemeteries and on private property.”

Walker, also a retired elementary school teacher and self-published author of six books, believes she might have relatives buried in Beulah since she was born and reared in nearby Edwards. “I’m looking forward to researching that,” she said.

Among those interviewed by Walker, who released her latest book titled “Blueprints of Sir Michael” last week, is cemetery manager Leo Sims.

“I think the story should be told because young people and everybody should know where this cemetery is, what it’s all about,” Sims said.

Sims, 80, has only been in charge of managing the cemetery for the last 10 years, but has been bound to the nearly 15-acre site off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard his entire life.

“My parents are buried here,” he said, adding that he has a plot reserved. He also mentioned he was born a few blocks away and still lives nearby. Sims gives a full account of his ties to the cemetery in the short documentary, which also features longtime Vicksburg resident Thelma Rush and the Jefferson family, owners of the first black funeral home in Vicksburg who also have family members buried at Beulah.

About 5,500 graves are in the cemetery, which was the primary burial ground for Vicksburg’s African-Americans until the 1940s, when burials started tapering off. The land, which shares a border with the Vicksburg National Military Park, was neglected and became overgrown and almost forgotten. For about 20 years, the committee has backed myriad efforts to clear and maintain the land through grants and volunteers. Creating a better inventory of burials is a work in progress.

The municipal cemetery, Cedar Hill, has not been racially segregated during its history, which dates almost to the city’s founding. There were, however, generally separate areas in the cemetery for whites and blacks.

Funding for the Beulah production, which is reported to be $2,500, will be sponsored by individuals and businesses from the community.

Frederick said the documentary, slated to be released as early as the end of this year, will be circulated around various community events before making its way to visitor centers across the state.