Behavior Cemetery Dates to 1805 Or So

After serving as a brigadier general in the Civil War, Robert H. Anderson served as Savannah’s chief of police until his death in 1888. He is buried at Bonaventure Cemetery under the bust on the left. on Sapelo after Thomas Spalding purchased a Behavior 4000-acre tract there in 1802. 38 After the Civil War ended, land on the coast- Cemetery al islands was sold to newly freed slaves as part Sapelo Island, Georgia of the Reconstruction plan. Fewer than 50 people remain on Sapelo, he first European settlers reached Georgia descendants of Africans brought here as slaves. in 1732. They had been condemned in They follow the traditions of Geechee culture, T England as debtors and sent to work off which is the longest surviving West African their sentences by supplying Britain with agricul- culture in the United States. tural products. Prior to 1750, slavery was banned The Behavior Cemetery dates to 1805 or so. in Georgia. Once the antislavery laws were Traditionally, Geechee cemeteries were dug in overturned, West Africans were imported as unoccupied wooded areas. Markers in the ceme- slaves, on the shaky justification that they could tery range from modern granite cubes to cement withstand the heat and humidity of the South. markers lettered by hand. Plantations on the Sea Islands grew rice. Geechee people believe that spirits remain Africans from the Windward Coast (modern-day active after death and can become mischie- Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia) grew vous if disturbed. To keep spirits from roaming, rice at home, so they were preferred to work on personal objects are left on graves: cups, china the islands. These Africans brought their win- plates, tobacco pipes that the deceased used in nowing baskets, burial practices, and especially life, as well as clocks or other domestic items. their language with them. Incorrectly dismissed as grave decorations, One of Georgia’s barrier islands, Sapelo these offerings have been stolen from graves at Island is a seven-mile boat trip from the main- Behavior as souvenirs—much to the horror of land. The village of Behavior was established surviving families. 38 UNITED STATES: SOUTH 199CemeteriesT_HCtext2F1.indd 38 04/01/18 2:41 am Cemetery records were destroyed in a fire at Chattanooga did archaeological research in in 1921. Because the cemetery has been in use the graveyard in May 2010. Using ground pen- for so long, it became increasingly common to etrating radar, they looked for unmarked graves disturb unmarked burials whenever a new grave and headstones that might have sunken beneath was opened. At the request of Geechee resi- the earth’s surface. The students then mapped the dents, students from the University of Tennessee cemetery to protect the ancestors buried there. Still in use today, Behavior Cemetery first served as a burial ground for enslaved Africans from the Windward Coast. Descendants still practice customs passed down over the centuries. UNITED STATES: SOUTH 39 199CemeteriesT_HCtext2F1.indd 39 04/01/18 2:42 am In June 1968, Coretta Scott King, King’s The Martin Luther widow, opened the Martin Luther King Jr. Center 39 for Nonviolent Social Change in the basement of King Jr. Center the couple’s home. Two years later, she had Dr. King’s body removed from the cemetery and placed for Nonviolent in a new tomb on a lot near the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Eventually the King Center moved nearby. Social Change The gravesite has evolved over time. Origi- 449 Auburn Avenue NE, Atlanta, Georgia nally, it held only the white marble sarcophagus http://thekingcenter.org with an epitaph taken from King’s I Have a Dream speech: “Free at last, free at last, thank God fter his assassination in Memphis by Almighty, I’m free at last.” In 1976, a memorial James Earl Ray in April 1968, Dr. Martin park was built around the tomb. It consisted of A Luther King Jr.’s body was brought home a brick and concrete plaza ringed by an arcade. to Atlanta. A farm wagon, drawn by mules, car- In time, the raked gravel around the grave was ried his coffin to Atlanta’s South-View Cemetery, replaced by a reflecting pool, with King’s sar- where his parents would later be buried. cophagus on a raised pedestal in the center. An South-View Cemetery was founded in 1886 eternal flame was added in 1977. by nine former slaves after African-Americans Coretta Scott King died from a stroke and were barred from Atlanta’s Whites-only grave- complications of ovarian cancer in January 2006. yards. In consequence, South-View Cemetery is She was interred in a small white tomb near Dr. the oldest African-American not-for-profit corpo- King’s grave until a sarcophagus to match his ration in the United States. It serves as the final could be constructed. Her epitaph comes from I resting place for over 70,000 African-Americans Corinthians: “And now abide Faith, Hope, Love, and others, regardless of race or religion. these three; but the greatest of these is Love.” To honor his Southern roots, Reverand King’s tomb is faced with Georgia marble. Coretta Scott King, his wife, joined him in 2006. 40 UNITED STATES: SOUTH 199CemeteriesT_HCtext2F1.indd 40 04/01/18 2:42 am Tuskegee 40 University Campus Cemetery Booker T. Washington Boulevard, While at Tuskegee, Carver invented a Born enslaved, Booker T. Washington Tuskegee, Alabama program of crop development and soil conserva- founded the Tuskegee tion. He revolutionized Southern agriculture by Institute (now University) in 1881. He ooker Taliaferro Washington, founder of demonstrating that a single crop—peanuts, for wished to be buried in Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, instance—could be used in hundreds of different the campus cemetery near the chapel. Bwas born enslaved in Virginia in 1856. Freed ways. Peanuts grew to be a $200-million industry by the Civil War, he pursued an education at the by 1938, thanks to his experiments. Hampton Institute on the shores of Chesapeake In 1915, Washington fell ill in New York and Bay. After graduation, he wanted to open a college returned to Alabama to die. He was laid to rest for African-American students farther south. Dona- on the campus he loved. His burial in the little tions to the Tuskegee Institute came from Andrew campus cemetery elevated it to a shrine. Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, among others. The university’s unassuming, informal ceme- In Missouri, George Washington Carver had tery is located near the University Chapel. Within also been born enslaved. He and his mother were its confines lie all but one of the university’s past kidnapped by slave stealers. Although he was presidents, including Frederick Douglas Patter- reclaimed, she disappeared. After the Civil War, son, who served as president for 25 years and Carver graduated from the Iowa State College of founded the United Negro College Fund. Agriculture and Industrial Arts. He dreamed of Also buried here is William Levi Dawson. His becoming an artist. Instead, Washington invited 1935 Negro Folk Symphony was the first sympho- Carver to join the faculty at Tuskegee. Carver ny written by a Black composer. He also founded taught there for the next 47 years. the Tuskegee Institute School of Music. them from the surrounding woodland. Some of Maplewood the original trees still put on a show each year. In summer, sugar maples cast dense shade 41 Cemetery over the granite markers below. In the fall, how- 1419 Maplewood Road, Harrison, Arkansas ever, the deciduous trees explode into their full http://www.harrisonarkansas.org/ beauty. As the weather grows colder, some turn c_upe_view.php?id=25 crimson, others orange, still others sunny yellow. Maplewood Cemetery comes into its true glory ver 700 sugar maple trees shade the between mid-October and early November. grounds of this cemetery. The trees were The cemetery invites visitors to walk the Ooriginally planted in 1924 by the women grounds, photograph the trees, and absorb its of the Twentieth Century Club, who transplanted sense of peace. Buried at Maplewood is John Paul Hammer- schmidt, the first Republican representative in Arkansas since the Reconstruction. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1967 to 1993, narrowly defeating Bill Clinton for Approximately 9,000 the seat in 1974. Hammerschmidt’s father was people rest in the a lumberman, so the congressman worked on shade of 700 sugar behalf of conservation while in office. He died of maple trees, from which the cemetery heart disease in 2015. takes its name. 199CemeteriesT_HCtext2F1.indd 41 04/01/18 2:42 am Ford, who had been afraid of storms. After she Natchez City died of yellow fever, her mother had her buried 42 in a vault constructed with a staircase down Cemetery into the ground, so that she could sit with her 2 Cemetery Road, Natchez, Mississippi baby whenever a storm came along. Clear natchez.ms.us/150/Cemetery glass used to look in at the head of Florence’s coffin, but that was removed in the 1950s to he city of Natchez is located on the Mis- prevent vandalism. sissippi River between Vicksburg and New One curious headstone seems to have sunk- T Orleans. The Spanish founded it as the en into the sod so that all that’s visible is “Lou- capital of the surrounding area around 1790. It ise. The Unfortunate.” It’s commonly believed was acquired by the United States as part of the that Louise was a mail-order bride who arrived Louisiana Purchase in 1803. on the dock at Natchez expecting to meet her Natchez City Cemetery, established in 1822, fiancé.

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