Multi-Faceted Efforts to Protect African American Burial Grounds Draw Public Support Florida, Maryland, Tennessee
CASE STUDY
identification and delineation of all the cemeteries, archival research, engage the local community, and provide an opportunity for their participation in the identification and design of the relocated cemetery. In 2021, TVA purchased land within Crestview Memorial Gardens to be used for the relocated cemetery. A dedication ceremony commemorating the new cemetery as the Garden of Eternal Freedom took place on June 22, 2022. Since 2020, TVA has been conducting exhaustive research on the graves, including a search for living descendants with connections to the cemeteries. A team of TVA staff has been meeting regularly with the Historic Odom’s Bend Cemetery Reinterment Planning Committee, consisting of interested members of the local community since May 2022. The committee chose the name Garden of Eternal Freedom for the new cemetery, designed an inscription for the markers that are being placed on all unidentified graves, assisted in the historical research, including interviews with some of the surviving members of the historic Odom’s Bend community, and prepared a booklet that contains historic and oral accounts of local history and of the people buried there. This research has unveiled details about the lives of these persons who lived in the historic Odom’s Bend community, details not recorded in any known documents. TVA is preparing a report that will describe all the studies completed and all the valuable information that has come from the investigation. The committee also planned and prepared the 2022 dedication ceremony, advertised the event in local churches, and served as a guiding resource for TVA’s ideas about the design of the relocated cemetery. This partnership has provided fascinating insights that will, along with research undertaken on the graves themselves, help document an accurate historical narrative that reveals the untold story of the historic Odom’s Bend community.
The burial sites of African Americans in the United States have historically been forgotten or ignored, leading to neglect, vandalism, and destruction of these hallowed grounds. In December 2022, Congress passed the bipartisan African American Burial Grounds Preservation Act into law through inclusion in the FY 2023 Omnibus Spending Package, establishing a preservation program to preserve historic Black burial grounds through the National Park Service. The program will provide grant opportunities and technical assistance to local partners to research, identify, survey, and preserve these cemeteries. While cemeteries do not ordinarily meet National Register criteria for eligibility without certain considerations, burial sites
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Hillsborough NAACP), has been working to define the location of Port Tampa Cemetery, an informal burial ground established in the early 1900s. Historic records and verbal accounts indicated that the cemetery was used for the interment of disenfranchised individuals, including African Americans. Indications of the presence of a burial ground were discovered during the early years of base development in the 1940s; however, the cemetery had been neglected until recently. Through extensive literature research, interviews, and nondestructive archaeological testing, the Air Force has located the possible site of the cemetery. In February 2021, MacDill AFB and the Hillsborough NAACP dedicated a historic marker during a Port Tampa Cemetery Service of Remembrance ceremony to document and acknowledge the general location where the lost Port Tampa Cemetery is believed to exist. Ellsworth Cemetery, Westminster, Maryland The Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration works with VA-owned national cemeteries and other burial sites to provide financial and volunteer support. At Ellsworth Cemetery, a private cemetery in Westminster, Maryland, volunteers and VA staff have identified, marked, and restored gravesites. Established in 1876 by six Black Union Army Veterans as a burial place “for the colored residents of Westminster, Maryland,” Ellsworth Cemetery had suffered damage from vandals over the years, which destroyed many of the cemetery’s markers. The Westminster community decided to rectify that through the identification of headstones for restoration. Through this federal and community partnership, Ellsworth Cemetery provides the African American
should be treated with dignity and respect in all circumstances regardless of eligibility. Federal agencies have responded to this inequity, both in policy and practice. In 2023, the ACHP adopted an updated
veterans who rest there with the overdue recognition they deserve and will continue to be a place to honor the sacrifice of these veterans for years to come. Garden of Eternal Freedom, Gallatin, Tennessee In 2019, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began planning for the relocation of more than 50 years of coal ash from the federally owned and operated Gallatin Fossil Plant in Sumner County, Tennessee. The project, which would ensure safe storage of the material in an expanded, 100-acre state-of-the-art lined landfill, posed an opportunity to preserve five historic cemeteries dating from 1810-1950, which served the local African American community prior to TVA’s acquisition of the land in 1952. In late 2019, TVA consulted with the Tennessee State Historic Preservation Office, Gallatin Mayor Paige Brown, and members of the local community and then entered into a memorandum of agreement that stipulated that TVA would complete
Center: Click to watch a video dedication to those laid to rest at the Port Tampa Cemetery at MacDill AFB. Top: The U.S. Grant Camp 68 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War host an annual memorial service honoring 175 African American enlisted men of the 56th U.S. Colored Infantry now buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. (National Cemetery Administration/VA)
“Policy Statement on Burial Sites, Human Remains, and Funerary Items” to address African American communities through consultation with subject matter experts. As demonstrated in the examples below, agencies also focused on the identification of descendent communities to help determine preservation outcomes in consultation. Port Tampa Cemetery, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida Since 2020, MacDill Air Force Base (AFB) in Florida, in coordination with the Hillsborough County Chapter of the
A grave stone for a newly identified veteran is unveiled at Ellsworth Cemetery in Westminster, MD. (Laura Hatcher)
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IN A SPIRIT OF STEWARDSHIP: A Report on Federal Historic Properties • 2024 | 51
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