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African American Cemeteries
Album Description
African cemeteries are in the news. I have learned about archaeologists discovering graves at Colonial Williamsburg, using radar to find graves in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, people buried in the Harmony Cemetery near Washington, DC, and the caretaker at the Magnolia Cemetery in Helena, Arkansas, a cemetery I visited.
This album contains information about these 4 cemeteries. Some photos used represent other additional African American Cemeteries. There's also a link to a photo of the James Stovall Grave in my Minnesota city. Mr. Stovall was a freed slave who became a successful businessman and philanthropist in Winona, Minnesota.
TPS members are invited to contribute additional photos.
African American Cemeteries Social Studies/History 6 - 8 9 - 12
Magnolia Cemetery, Helena, Arkansas
Teaching Notes
Photo: Eight Cotton Bale remedies. Crowned with merit and success
The Magnolia Cemetery was formed before the Civil War. Arkansas’ first black legislator is buried there as are several early pioneering black settlers are buried there. The large cemetery runs deep into the woods.
A counter to Confederate monuments, Black cemeteries tell a fuller story of the South (Minmeapolis Star Tribune, Spring 2021) focuses on the Rev. Leroy Williams, who looks after the 36-acre and worries about who will take his place.
Magnolia is one of many cemeteries in the Mississippi River City of Helena. Helena has other historic sites including a civil war battlefield. Visit Helena
Images and stories of some people buried in Magnolia Cemetery
Social Studies/History
6 - 8
9 - 12
Helena Arkansas
African American Cemeteries
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/2005687684/
Reference note
Summary: Advertisement for Cotton Bale Medicine Co. (Helena, Arkansas) patent medicines, including blood elixir, tonics, cough syrup, liver pills, liniment, healing balm, and "worm and liver shot." Image shows African Americans at work in cotton fields, with steamboats on the river in the distance.
Created / Published: c1888.
Subject Headings: - Cotton pickers--1880-1890
- Patent medicines--1880-1890
Notes: - Copyright by Z. W. Patrick.
- G. H. Dunston, Lith., Buffalo, N.Y.
- Title from item.
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Digital Id: ppmsca 09468 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.09468
Colonial Williamsburg Excavation Project
Teaching Notes
Photo: Williamsburg, Virginia, ca. 1740
The Williamsburg excavation project is at the site of the Historic First Baptist Church, one of the oldest congregations founded by free and enslaved Black Americans.
Southeast Virginia Newspaper story with several photos
Social Studies/History 9 - 12 6 - 8 Williamsburg, Virginia African Amewrican Cemeteries
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/2012649731/
Reference note
Summary: Print shows two rows of buildings, numbered 1-6, at Williamsburg, Virginia, and plant specimens, insects, and two views of Natives, numbered 7-16, and four tools, numbered a-d, used by the Natives.
Contributor Names: Bartram, John, 1699-1777.
Created / Published: [between 1740 and 1770]
Subject Headings: - Buildings--Virginia--Williamsburg--1740-1770
- Insects--1740-1770
- Plants--1740-1770
- Indians of North America--Virginia--1740-1770
- Williamsburg (Va.)--1740-1770
Genre: Etchings--1740-1770
Notes: - Title devised by Library staff.
- Inscribed in pencil at bottom: Print from the original copper plate formerly in the possession of the Bodleian Library - now in Williamsburg. May have been the work of John Bartram, the colonial botanist.
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id: pga 13707 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pga.13707
cph 3a05834 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a05834
Smoky Mountain National Park
Teaching Notes
PHOTO Headstones at the historic Aiken Colored Cemetery, since 1988 called Pine Lawn Memorial Gardens, in Aiken, South Carolina
Radar is used find graves of enslaved people the Great Smoky Mountains
WHYDaily, a Southeastern Virginia newspaper details the project and has helpful photos
According to Minneapolis Star Tribune artitcle, more than 150 cemeteries exist in the park, and the first being searched for enslaved people is also among the park’s best-known historical landmarks: the Mingus Mill, built in 1886."
Typical documents may not be available for many of these nameless people in unmarked graves.
Burial landscapes in the Park. https://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/burial_landscape.htm
Social Studies/History 6 - 8 9 - 12 Smoky Mountain National Park African American Cemeteries
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/2017879983/
Reference note
Contributor Names: Highsmith, Carol M., 1946-, photographer
Created / Published: 2017-05-07.
Subject Headings: - United States--South Carolina--Aiken County--Aiken
- America
- African-American cemeteries
- Cemeteries
- Pine Lawn Memorial Gardens
Genre: Digital photographs--Color--2010-2020
Notes: - Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
- Established in 1852, the cemetery, now somewhat overgrown with weeds, was the only burial place for African-Americans in Aiken until the mid-20th Century. Its occupants represent a diverse range, including slaves, freedmen, business leaders, tradesmen, and paupers.
- Purchase; Carol M. Highsmith Photography, Inc.; 2017; (DLC/PP-2016:103-6).
- Forms part of: Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
- Credit line: Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id: highsm 43079 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.43079
Columbian Harmony Cemetery, Virginia
Teaching Notes
Image: [Bookmark prospectus for three works by Willsie Morrow: With malice toward none; Forever free; and Mary Todd Lincoln.]
The Columbian Harmony Cemetery close to Washington DC has graves of Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker and friend, Mrs. Elizabeth Keckley ( 2nd from left in the image) , a Howard university Law professor, Mariann Chad, one of the first black publishers and Stg Fleetwood who received a medal of honor.
The graves were discovered when tombstones washed up on the shore of a family farm along the Potomac River.
History behind the lost Columbian Harmony Cemetery CBS Sunday Morning 2/21/21
6 - 8 9 - 12 Social Studies/History African American Cemeteries Columbian Harmony Cemetery
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/scsm000602/
Reference note
Contributor Names: Morrow, Honore Willsie (Author)
Created / Published: William Morrow & Co., New York, n. d.
Subject Headings: - Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
- Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) 1822-1885
- Butler, Benjamin (1818-1893)
- Lincoln, Mary Todd (1818-1882)
- Lincoln, Thomas (Tad) (1853-1871)
- Sumner, Charles (1811-1874)
- Douglass, Frederick (1817?-1895)
- Stanton, Edwin (1814-1869)
- Lincolniana
- Lincoln, life of
- Morrow, Honore Willsie (1880-1940)
- Keckley, Elizabeth (Lizzie) (1818-1907)
- Ephemera
- Advertisements
- United States -- New York
Genre: Ephemera
Advertisements
Notes: - Bookmark.
Repository: Rare Book And Special Collections Division
Digital Id: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/lprbscsm.scsm0602
Headstones at the historic Aiken Colored Cemetery, since 1988 called Pine Lawn Memorial Gardens, in Aiken, South Carolina
Teaching Notes
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/2017879983/
Reference note
Contributor Names: Highsmith, Carol M., 1946-, photographer
Created / Published: 2017-05-07.
Subject Headings: - United States--South Carolina--Aiken County--Aiken
- America
- African-American cemeteries
- Cemeteries
- Pine Lawn Memorial Gardens
Genre: Digital photographs--Color--2010-2020
Notes: - Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
- Established in 1852, the cemetery, now somewhat overgrown with weeds, was the only burial place for African-Americans in Aiken until the mid-20th Century. Its occupants represent a diverse range, including slaves, freedmen, business leaders, tradesmen, and paupers.
- Purchase; Carol M. Highsmith Photography, Inc.; 2017; (DLC/PP-2016:103-6).
- Forms part of: Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
- Credit line: Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id: highsm 43079 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.43079
Daisy Ross cleaning and decorating a grave
Teaching Notes
Contemporary photo, West Virginia
Graveyard Hill is the site of an African American cemetery on the hillside above the sludge pond ("coal refuse impoundment") now filling Shumate's Branch. Each year former residents of the African American settlement at the mining town of Edwight return with their children and grandchildren to tend the graves of their relatives and hold a family reunion at the former home of Belle Wilson, a family ancestor.
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/cmns000934/
Reference note
Contributor Names: Ross, Daisy (Depicted)
Eiler, Terry (Photographer)
Created / Published: 1996/05
Subject Headings: - Shumate's Branch
- Community events
- Community space
- Spring
- Graveyard Hill (Shumate's Branch, W. Va.)
- May
- National holidays
- African American cemeteries
- Grave tending
- Wilson, Belle
- Photographs
- Ethnography
- West Virginia -- Shumate's Branch
- West Virginia -- Raleigh County -- Edwight
Genre: Photographs
Ethnography
Notes: - Event: Memorial Day Weekend on Graveyard Hill.
- "Graveyard Hill is the site of an African American cemetery on the hillside above the sludge pond ("coal refuse impoundment") now filling Shumate's Branch. Each year former residents of the African American settlement at the mining town of Edwight return with their children and grandchildren to tend the graves of their relatives and hold a family reunion at the former home of Belle Wilson, a family ancestor.
- This is the one weekend of the year that Performance Coal Company (a subsidiary of A.T. Massey) opens the road into the mountains around Shumate's Branch to allow public access to this cemetery."
Repository: American Folklife Center
Digital Id: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afccmns.tec03117
Graves of two freed slaves: Uncle Joe and James Stovall
Teaching Notes
Photo: Grave of Uncle Joe; died 1888; tombstone erected by B.J. Hoole, son-in-law of General John L. Hunter; "In memory of a trusted slave who continued as a servant after he was freed"; Fairview Cemetery, Eufaula, Alabama]
James Stovall, Woodlawn Cemetery, Winona, Minnesota
Find a Grave text: His father was an English-born plantation owner and his mother a house slave. He accompanied his father, Major Peter Stovall, as his orderly in the Confederate Army. James escaped to the Union where he joined Co F, Fifty-First Illinois Infantry. He served as an officer's cook and participated in the battles of Chattanooga and Chickamauga. Mustered out in Chicago, he worked in the restaurant business before coming to Winona in 1876 and opening his own restaurant. Active in the republican party, he attended many presidential inaugurations. He retired in 1901.
Reference link: http://www.loc.gov/item/99615419/
Reference note
Created / Published: [between 1937 and ca. 1938]
Subject Headings: - Joe,--Uncle--Tomb--Alabama--Eufaula
- United States--Alabama--Eufaula
Notes: - 10036.
- Caption on item: The tombstone of "Uncle Joe" is a reminder of the relations between kindly master and faithful slave. It stands in Fairview Cemtery [sic], Eufaula, and was placed by B.J. Hoole, son-in-law of Gen. John L. Hunter, in memory of a trusted slave who continued as a servant after he was freed.
- Forms part of: Portraits of African American ex-slaves from the U.S. Works Progress Administration, Federal Writers' Project slave narratives collections.
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
Digital Id: ppmsc 01237 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.01237
cph 3c25132 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c25132
S.2827 - African American Burial Grounds Study Act
Teaching Notes
Passed Senate (12/20/2020)
African American Burial Grounds Study Act
This bill directs the National Park Service (NPS) to conduct a study of ways to identify, interpret, preserve, and record unmarked, previously abandoned, underserved, or other burial grounds relating to the historic African American experience.
In conducting the study, the NPS shall consider
- ways to engage with descendant, local, and other communities historically associated with identified burial grounds by geography, genealogy, or culture;
- appropriate processes to identify locations of unmarked and unrecorded African American burial grounds with appropriate consideration for the privacy and safety of the burial grounds;
- alternatives for providing in a public database the locations of, and information on, recorded and unrecorded African American burial grounds;
- alternatives for commemorating and interpreting African American burial grounds; and
- best practices for preserving burial ground landscapes and caring for artifacts.