Grave Matters: The African American Cemetery & Graves Fund
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Wednesday, February 7, 2024 • • General
Published January 12, 2024 By Joanna Wilson Green, Cemetery Preservation Archaeologist
We are nearly halfway through the 2023-24 African American Cemeteries & Graves Fund grant cycle, and it has been a busy few months! As of publication we have issued 13 maintenance grants and three new extraordinary maintenance grants, all of which add up to a total of $168,931 in grant funding disbursements. Our newest extraordinary maintenance block grant recipients include Union Street Cemeteries in the City of Hampton (brush removal and landscape restoration), Union Baptist Church-Shores in Fluvanna County (ground penetrating radar survey), and Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery in the City of Alexandria (headstone repair and landscape restoration). A list of successful applicants may be found at the end of this article. We enjoy working with our existing grant recipients and look forward to meeting new ones as the year goes by.
The latest updates on this grant program and how to find out if a grave or cemetery is eligible for funding.
By Joanna Wilson Green, Cemetery Preservation Archaeologist
We are nearly halfway through the 2023-24 African American Cemeteries & Graves Fund grant cycle, and it has been a busy few months! As of publication we have issued 13 maintenance grants and three new extraordinary maintenance grants, all of which add up to a total of $168,931 in grant funding disbursements. Our newest extraordinary maintenance block grant recipients include Union Street Cemeteries in the City of Hampton (brush removal and landscape restoration), Union Baptist Church-Shores in Fluvanna County (ground penetrating radar survey), and Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery in the City of Alexandria (headstone repair and landscape restoration). A list of successful applicants may be found at the end of this article. We enjoy working with our existing grant recipients and look forward to meeting new ones as the year goes by.
We encourage anyone who owns or cares for an African American cemetery to contact us. Applications for 2023-24 funding (both standard and extraordinary maintenance) will be accepted through close of business on May 31, 2024. An updated grants manual and application forms can be found on our website.
As a reminder to our current grant recipients, DHR requires that you submit a reconciliation of expenses to us after July 1, but no later than September 30. This reconciliation should document how grant funds were used in the maintenance of your cemetery and should include invoices or receipts if available. All materials should be forwarded to Joanna Wilson Green by mail at 2801 Kensington Avenue, Richmond, Va., 23221, or submitted electronically to joanna.wilson@dhr.virginia.gov. DHR will be unable to disburse any additional grant funds to your organization if this information is not submitted and approved.
DHR’s African American Cemetery & Graves Fund provides grants to support the care and maintenance of cemeteries established on or before December 31, 1947, specifically for the interment of African Americans. The graves of any individuals born prior to 1900 (regardless of date of death) AND the graves of any individuals born after January 1, 1900 and interred prior to 1948 are considered eligible. Birth and/or interment dates may be confirmed through headstone inscriptions, vital records, church records, newspaper obituaries, and other information sources. We will also accept the results of ground penetrating radar (GPR) if performed and fully documented by a qualified practitioner. Initial grants will be made at a rate of $5 per eligible grave, and recipients are thereafter invited to apply for block grants to fund “extraordinary maintenance” projects like those mentioned above.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2024 • • General
Time was running out to save the last vestige of a rollicking African American getaway on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. The pair of neighboring Jim Crow era resorts once buzzed along the waterfront of the Annapolis Neck peninsula. At their height during the 1950s and '60s, Carr's and Sparrow's beaches attracted crowds by the thousands who came to relax and enjoy some of the top Black entertainers of the day, from Little Richard to Aretha Franklin. But after the venues closed in the 1970s, their once-expansive acreage began to be swallowed by suburban development: a gated subdivision, a marina, a senior-living community and the expansion of a wastewater treatment plant.
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Sunday, January 28, 2024 • • General
January 28, 2024 - On a blustery January afternoon in Princeville, N.C., about 35 citizens met with their mayor, elected commissioners and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in their new flood-resistant town hall, built in 2020. Across Main Street, elderly residents were climbing two flights of stairs to enter their senior center, raised 14 feet above ground level in 2021. A quarter-mile away, the Tar River — Princeville's longtime nemesis — rolled on quietly, north to south. The Tar and its latent forces were the reason for this meeting. Princeville, the oldest Black-chartered town in the United States, has suffered through at least nine hurricanes and floods since it was established at the end of the Civil War. They're only getting worse. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd breached the town's levee and left 10 feet of standing water for two weeks, destroying nearly 1,000 buildings. Floyd was followed in 2016 by Matthew, which again breached the levee and demolished half the town.
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Sunday, January 28, 2024 • • General
January 24, 2024 - After 24 years on the DC Preservation League's "Most Endangered Places" list, the Mary Church Terrell House has officially been saved through an extensive restoration. After decades of vacancy between 1987 and 2023, the house is once again ready for visitors. Originally constructed in 1894, the house was built as part of a duplex--hence its unusual, half-severed appearance. The twin half of the house was demolished following a devastating fire in the 1960s, rendering the Terrell house memorably asymmetrical. The building's historical significance can be traced to one of its early residents, Mary Church Terrell, who is known for her work as a civil rights activist and educator in Washington, DC.
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