A DC developer trashed 37,000 Black gravestones.
55 Historic African American gravestones found tossed along the Potomac River will be reunited with remains.
Here’s how they ended up in the Potomac River.
55 Historic African American gravestones found tossed along the Potomac River will be reunited with remains.
Four years ago on a pretty fall day, Virginia Senator Richard Stuart was exploring his newly purchased farm along the Potomac River with his wife. She spotted large rocks on the shoreline that seemed out of place in the wooded area.
In shock, she gasped.
"Is that a ...," she asked.
Stuart finished her sentence before she was able to articulate the rest.
"A tombstone," he said.
After further research, Stuart learned that his land was the dumping ground for thousands of historic Black gravestones from the Columbian Harmony Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
From 1859 to 1960, the D.C. cemetery was the final resting place for more than 37,000 African American residents in and around the nation’s capital. Among them were two sons of abolitionist Frederick Douglas, Phillip Reid—who helped create the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol, many Black Union Army veterans, and one of D.C.’s first Black policemen.
In 1960, the land was sold. Most of the remains were relocated to National Harmony Park in Landover, Md. But the original tombstones were discarded.
A Virginia farmer saw an ad in the Washington Newspaper for free rip-rap. For two years, he transported truckloads of the discarded tombstones from Rhode Island Ave. in D.C., to his property in King George, Va. He dumped them along his two-mile stretch of coastline to prevent his land from eroding into the Potomac River.
Now, thousands of historic Black gravestones are currently lost in the muddy river banks. And the bodies of Black people originally buried with respect, remain unmarked at the new burial ground in Maryland.'>>>
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/columbian-harmony-cemetery-african-american-grave-tombstones-reunited-with-remains/65-73a339b6-c950-4dcd-af27-3b97d3249910?
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