Hallowed Grounds is a public archive dedicated to documenting and preserving historic African American cemeteries and burial grounds across the United States. The project draws on Wikidata, the Wikipedia "List of African American cemeteries," and supplemental records of the National Register of Historic Places to compile an open record of the sites in which the African American dead have been laid to rest across nearly four centuries of American history.

Why This Matters

For most of American history, African Americans were denied burial in the public cemeteries of the towns and cities they helped to build. Black churches, fraternal orders, and burial societies rose to fill the absence, consecrating ground in which families could lay their dead with the dignity the surrounding society refused. The cemeteries that survive from those years are among the most endangered sites in the American landscape: many sit on land coveted by developers, others have been quietly abandoned as descendant communities migrated, still others survive only through the labor of a single family or volunteer who has assumed the stewardship for decades.

These sites are also among the most irreplaceable evidence of African American community history. In an era when public records often failed to preserve the names and lives of Black Americans, the burial grounds maintained by churches and burial societies stood as both sanctified space and informal archive. The work of documenting and protecting these sites is the work of historical recovery itself.

What This Archive Contains

The archive currently includes 578 documented historic African American cemeteries across 46 states. Each cemetery has its own profile page including, where available, its location, founding date, National Register of Historic Places reference number, geographic coordinates, and links to additional documentation. Cemeteries are also accessible through state and county index pages, and through a series of thematic guides covering topics such as freedmen's cemeteries, church- adjacent burial grounds, the recovery of unmarked graves, United States Colored Troops burials, and the principal preservation advocacy organizations active in this work today.

Sources

The principal data sources for the Hallowed Grounds catalog are:

  • The Wikidata SPARQL endpoint at query.wikidata.org, queried for cemeteries in the United States with names containing keywords associated with African American history.
  • The Wikipedia article "List of African American cemeteries", parsed and integrated with the Wikidata results.
  • The National Register of Historic Places, administered by the National Park Service, used to flag cemeteries with formal federal recognition of historical significance.
  • Supplemental references to the African American Civil Rights Network and to the African-American Burial Grounds Preservation Program established by the 2024 federal Act, both administered by the National Park Service.

Editorial Approach

The descriptive content for each cemetery profile is developed on the basis of the available structured data and the broader scholarly and preservation literature on African American burial grounds. The project does not claim original authority over the underlying historical record; the work is one of aggregation, presentation, and onward referral to the primary sources. We strive to write with the dignity and care that the subject demands.

Corrections and Additions

Any aggregation of data from multiple public sources will contain errors, gaps, and inconsistencies. The Hallowed Grounds catalog is a starting point for further research, not a substitute for direct engagement with the sources or with the descendant communities most directly knowledgeable about each site. Corrections, additional records, and supplementary information are welcome and will be incorporated as the catalog is updated.