BATON ROUGE - Established in the mid 1800s, Sweet Olive Cemetery was the first cemetery for African Americans in the capital city. Nearly 200 years later, weeds are overgrown, graves are broken into pieces and piled on top of one another.

"When we first started, the giant ragweed had taken over the entire cemetery. They were at lease 10 feet tall. You could only see about 50-75 of these graves," said Michael Strain, a member of Friends of Sweet Olive Cemetery (FOSOC) Nonprofit.

For years, Strain and his group have spent endless hours trying to restore the historic site.

"For me, personally, it's a chance to show some respect to people who were not shown respect in life," Strain said.

On Saturday, the effort was larger than ever.

"This is just a stepping stone for getting residents to lead their own initiatives," said Denise Dyson with Mid City Redevelopment Alliance.

More than 80 volunteers picked weeds, raked up leaves and cleaned off tombstones. It was a day of service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

"We just need more times like this where we're all coming together as one, for one thing, one moment, one time," Dyson said.

The nonprofit organization FOSOC is now working to make days like this more common with regular maintenance.

"So that we can start doing permanent repairs on the crypts and on the graves. There is more than one grave out here that has exposed human remains," Strain said.

"We just want this place to be 1) remembered respectfully, and 2) welcoming to the families so that they can find their people," Dyson added.

FOSOC is also looking for more historic information about the thousands of people buried there. You can learn more about them here, or follow their Facebook page here.