Border fence threatens family burial ground — and a slice of African-American history

PHARR, Texas - When Ramiro Ramirez was a boy, his grandmother would bring him to visit the family cemeteries tucked amid vegetable and sugarcane fields here just north of the Rio Grande. He would carry a small bucket of water to help her plant red roses next to the wooden cross marking the grave of his great-great-grandfather, Nathaniel Jackson, who died in 1865.

Growing up, he heard rumors about his father's black roots and how they almost foiled his parents' marriage. But only last year - after being contacted by a historian studying the area's role in the Civil War - did he learn the full truth about his ancestors and their involvement in the Underground Railroad.

"They kept it a secret," said Ramirez, now 70. "They didn't pass it on to us."

Now that history might offer the best hope for saving the family burial grounds.

Last year, the Trump administration started