By Deborah Bailey
AFRO Contributing Editor
dbailey@afro.com
Cultural Historian Cory J. France returned to Goucher College Oct. 14 to receive the campus’ Rory Turner Prize for Cultural Sustainability. France presented a lecture summarizing his recent work, “Scenes at the Stakes,” which focuses on the restoration of historic Black gravesites in South Carolina.
France’s discussion, titled “Black Cemetery Citizenship: Memory, Place and the Stakes of Care,” was an explanation of community-led restoration efforts at Palmetto Cemetery, one of many Black burial grounds throughout the nation in the process of reclamation.
“‘Scenes at the Stakes,’ my capstone and working manuscript centers Black cemetery citizenship – the ways we remember, return and refuse to forget,” France said. “It’s rooted in Palmetto Cemetery, a historic Black burial ground in my hometown, Columbia, S.C.”
Like many historically Black cemeteries, France said upkeep of the Palmetto Cemetery relies on “no grant money. No headline tours. Just descendants showing up, like they always have, to tend the resting places of their kin.”
At a time when Black Historic cemetery sites are being uncovered and recovered at an historic pace across the nation, France’s capstone project “Scenes at the Stakes” validates both Black cemetery preservation, and Black historical preservation efforts across the country.
France’s final project toward his masters’ degree in Cultural Sustainability and Historic Preservation led the South Carolina native back home. France is currently working in Charleston as an historian with the cultural resource management firm, New South Associates, but the need for restoration of the community-based Black cemetery in Palmetto drew him in.
Like many Black cemeteries across the U.S., Palmetto Cemetery started burying Black bodies in 1920. It was the first cemetery in the area where burials were allowed for Blacks. Over the years, many of the area’s notable Black leaders were buried in Palmetto Cemetery. The cemetery is community owned and in 1940, the Palmetto Cemetery Association was founded to help with upkeep. However, by the latter part of the 20th century, the community non-profit faced difficulty with upkeep of the 17-acre site where more than 400 ancestors are laid to rest.
By 2015, the Palmetto Cemetery Association had started raising funds to support the vast restoration work needed to upgrade the site. France joined the effort, helped organize community support, and brought his knowledge of preservation to the project.
“This was a labor of love and community…just members of the community coming together,” said France.
Baltimore’s Mount Auburn Cemetery, the city’s oldest and largest Black cemetery, is facing a crossroads similar to Palmetto. Mount Auburn is the final resting place of historic Baltimore luminaries including civil rights leader and former Baltimore NAACP president Lilli Mae Jackson Carroll and John Henry Murphy Sr., founder of the AFRO American Newspapers. Though it is honored as sacred ground still today, the historic cemetery in the Westport/ Mt. Winans section of Southwest Baltimore has seen better days.
“For generations, our family has made an annual pilgrimage to Mount Auburn Cemetery in South Baltimore’s Westport community to honor our ancestors, including my great-grandfather, John H. Murphy,” said Dr. Frances “Toni” Murphy Draper, AFRO News publisher and CEO.
Draper said descendants and friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery have always combined visiting their ancestors with upkeep and restoration of the property. This means bringing flowers, but also “handheld lawn mowers, clippers and trash bags.”
Speaking to the efforts of family members and concerned residents, Draper recalled past visits.
“We would roll up our sleeves and wade through grass that sometimes reached our calves, determined to clear the gravesites and make them beautiful again,” she said. “It was a sacred act of love, respect and remembrance.”
Draper was relieved to hear about the “Resurrecting Mount Auburn” project sponsored by the Maryland State Archives, as well as other efforts to enhance the historic grave site.
“This historically significant cemetery holds the stories of generations of Black Baltimoreans – trailblazers, freedom fighters and community builders,” she said. “It deserves constant upkeep and stewardship worthy of its legacy.”
In East Baltimore, the Laurel Cemetery Task force is working to ensure the remains of ancestors buried in the Laurel Cemetery, incorporated in 1852, are being recognized and reclaimed. In September, descendants and advocates of the city’s first non-denominational Black burial site unveiled a commemorative sign to honor those believed to remain beneath the redeveloped area.
“We are here so that Laurel is not forgotten. So that the names of those buried here are not lost forever,” said Elgin Klugh, professor at Coppin State University and chair of the Laurel Cemetery Task Force. The historic Black burial site was demolished in 1958 after being left unattended for many years. While some bodies were transferred to a new Laurel cemetery in Carroll County, Md. evidence has emerged that human remains are still buried beneath the site.
If the movements to preserve Palmetto Cemetery, Mount Auburn Cemetery are Laurel Cemetery are any indication of what’s to come, it’s clear that more and more Black leaders are taking up the fight to preserve, remember and respect Black burial spaces.
During his presentation at Goucher, France captured the essence of the fight for Black burial sites, stating that “Black cemetery citizenship as a praxis of care, memory and resistance that reasserts Black presence and responsibility in places shaped by erasure.”