Evergreen Cemetery

Story

Evergreen Cemetery is a historic African-American cemetery in the East End of Richmond, Virginia, dating from 1891. Notable African-American Richmonders including Maggie L. Walker, John Mitchell, Jr., A.D.Price, and Rev.J.Andrew Bowler are buried there.The most recent burial in the historic section of the cemetery dates from the 1980s. Much of the privately owned cemetery is completely overgrown with kudzu or is returning to forest. The original organization responsible for the cemetery, the Evergreen Cemetery Association, made no allowances for perpetual care in its charter. In 1970, the association sold its more than 5,000 plots to Metropolitan Memorial Services, which soon went bankrupt. A group of black funeral-home directors later bought the site at auction.