Organizations committed to preserving the Woodlawn Cemetery in Ward 7, including District graduate chapters of Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta sororities, held a virtual conference on Feb. 15 to talk about the site’s pressing issues and next steps for its preservation.
“By heritage and purpose, our organizations have a vested interest in ensuring that Woodlawn’s legacy endures,” said Majorie Kinard, Woodlawn Collaborative Project coordinator and member of the Washington DC Alumnae Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
The 90-minute conference with the 100 attendees was cosponsored by the Woodlawn Collaborative Project and the Woodlawn Cemetery Perpetual Care Association.
Event speakers included Kinard, Raven L. Hill, president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Xi Omega Chapter, who moderated the panel; conference facilitator Nicole Jordan, president of the Washington Alumnae Chapter of Delta; Anntoinette White-Richardson, vice president of the Woodlawn Cemetery Perpetual Care Association Board of Directors; and Lisa Fager, executive director of Black Georgetown Foundation’s Mt. Zion-Female Union Band Historic Memorial Park, Inc.
The History of Woodlawn Cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery is in the Benning Ridge neighborhood of Southeast D.C. The cemetery features a 22.5-acre site containing approximately 36,000 burials, nearly all African American.
In the 19th century, Black and white Americans tended to be buried in separate cemeteries.
By the 1880s, most Black people lived in the eastern part of the District and only two cemeteries met their needs: Graceland Cemetery located in the Maryland Avenue area of Northeast and Payne Cemetery at the present site of Fletcher-Johnson Recreation Center also in Northeast. However, the need for more housing for white residents and the decomposing of bodies in the Graceland Cemetery area in the water supply posed a problem for the city’s leaders.
District leaders agreed with white residents that Graceland should be utilized for racially segregated housing and supported creating Woodlawn Cemetery adjacent to Payne. Five white men incorporated Woodlawn, forming the Woodlawn Cemetery Association, on January 8, 1895. The cemetery opened on May 13, 1895.
Prominent historical figures buried at Woodlawn include Blanche K. Bruce, the first Black man to serve a full term as a U.S. senator; John Mercer Langston, an African American U.S. representative from Virginia and first dean of the Howard Law School; Marjorie Hill and Sarah Meriwether Nutter, founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha; and one of the founders of Delta Sigma Theta Mary Edna Brown Coleman. The cemetery was closed in 1976 due to the lack of available plots.
Woodlawn was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Preservation and Care of Woodlawn
The main point of discussion during the conference had to do with the maintenance of Woodlawn Cemetery. The kin of those buried at the cemetery were the target audience of the event.
“We want the descendants of those buried at Woodlawn Cemetery to get involved,” said Jordan. “We seek to build a community of caring relatives. We want to keep this cemetery alive and well.”
Fager said there are only four Black cemeteries in the District, with three of those located in the Georgetown neighborhood in Northwest.
“Woodlawn is the largest,” she said.
White-Richardson explained while there are records of some buried at the cemetery, there is still missing information about some of the people who were laid to rest at the historic site. She said Howard University holds the cemetery’s records.
Noting a small budget that doesn’t cover costs for the Woodlawn’s full upkeep, Kinard requested volunteers to help maintain the cemetery.
“Volunteers are welcome to come help,” Kinard said. “We want to be sure to get the word out among the descendants.”
Hill said cleanups at Woodlawn are scheduled to take place in the spring.
Fager said she is encouraged by the participation of the Delta and AKA chapters, saying “collectively we can make a lot of noise” advocating on behalf of the site.
