James Russell is on a quest to restore 19 headstones buried at the cemetery for Black settlers at Niagara-on-the-Lake, and says the small Ontario town should foot the $59,000 bill.

Headstones were damaged mostly in two older sections of the 139-year-old cemetery, one of the city’s oldest. “As soon as I saw (the damaged headstones), I thought to myself, ‘Oh no ...