The oldest Black cemeteries in D.C. are located in Georgetown, including the only two that still hold people who died in slavery; Mount Zion Cemetery and Female Union Band Society Cemetery.
Despite being on D.C.’s Inventory of Historic Sites, the cemeteries have faced systemic neglect and even defamation. Last year, a little girl’s grave was found vandalized and burned at Mount Zion Cemetery right after the community’s Juneteenth ceremony.
Sadly, disrespectful treatment of these stones is nothing new. Historical prejudice meant that the once all-white Oak Hill Cemetery next door was better protected and preserved than the all-Black cemeteries next door. Now, the organization Black Georgetown is unearthing, researching, and restoring hundreds of forgotten headstones.
“We had a workshop [on] how to restore the markers. We’ve been putting them together, cleaning them, and we found a hundred markers and artifacts,” said Lisa Fager, the Executive Director of Black Georgetown.
The cemeteries are also historic because of the role they played as part of the Underground Railroad.
“We know for a fact that Mount Zion Cemetery has a vault where people would hide on the underground railroad that you can see to this day,” added Fager.
Black Georgetown is also curating a database about the thousands of people buried in the cemeteries and their living relatives. It’s a project uniquely possible in D.C. because of how slavery was abolished here. Learn more about the historic research on our podcast.
