"Well,
there's one kind of favor I'll ask of you,
Well, there's one kind of favor I'll ask of you,
There's just one kind of favor I'll ask of you,
You can see that my grave is kept clean."
Well, there's one kind of favor I'll ask of you,
There's just one kind of favor I'll ask of you,
You can see that my grave is kept clean."
"See that my grave is kept clean," - Blind Lemon Jefferson, 1928.
Evergreen Cemetery, in the far
northeast corner of Richmond, is one of the saddest and most desolate places in
the city. Where it once was considered
the high-style African American answer to the grandeur of Hollywood Cemetery,
today it is largely overgrown and desolate. Under a thick blanket of ivy, leaves, and
weeds are buried the educators, ministers, businessmen and leaders that shaped
black Richmond for generations, and their families.
Typical scene of
the elaborate grave markers in the
forest that was once the fashionable
Evergreen Cemetery.
Towering oaks crowd cast iron
fences and a green pall of ivy threatens to engulf thousands of graves. A few families try to stem the tide of kudzu
that covers where their family members are buried with mowers and brush axes - an
admirable if endless task. Beneath the
shade of the canopy of trees that now cover most of Evergreen are the graves of
some of the most important black Richmonders of the post Civil War era.
John Mitchell, Jr.,
Richmond’s “Fighting Editor” of
the city’s African American newspaper, the Richmond Planet.
Among them is John Mitchell,Jr. Born into slavery in 1863, Mitchell grew
up in Reconstruction Richmond in a time of enormous growth in black society. A rapidly developing black middle class
demanded new businesses, buildings, and other advancements to signal parity
with white Richmond.
Among these institutions that
served the growing African American demographic were Mitchell’s newspaper, the Richmond Planet, as well as a bank
Mitchell founded, the Mechanics Savings Bank.
He served as city alderman for Jackson Ward, and was instrumental in the
construction of the First Battalion Virginia Volunteers Armory on Leigh Street.
Mitchell knew if parity with white society was to be attained, new facilities
such as a high-style cemetery needed to be created.
As Evergreen Cemetery was once the
picturesque equivalent of Hollywood Cemetery, the Armory on Leigh Street was
the social and military equal of Richmond’s several armories for whites. More
than a hundred years later, the Armory and the cemetery, Mitchell and his
contemporaries from the turn of the last century are finally beginning to be
recognized.
When she died in 1913, Mitchell
installed an elaborate memorial for his mother, Rebecca, of a robed woman
embracing a cross. On it he had added an
inscription, which is not only a tribute to her memory but also a remarkable
record of Mitchell’s own unyielding character:
SHE HATED DECIET AND DESPISED
HYPROCRACY. HER CHRISTIAN TRAINING AND
UPRIGHT CONDUCT MADE ME ALL THAT I AM - ALL THAT I HOPED TO BE.
Consistent with that philosophy, Mitchell
used the Richmond Planet as a vehicle
to hold up the horror of lynchings to the public, and travelled throughout
Virginia documenting violence against African Americans to investigate
equalities and injustices of Jim Crow America.
Once described in the New York
World as someone “who would walk into the jaws of death for his people,” Richmond’s
“fighting editor” died at his home on Clay Street in 1929.
The overgrown Mitchell
family plot in 2008, showing the elaborate monument
John Mitchell, Jr. erected
to the memory of his mother. Mitchell is
buried in this plot.
In contrast to an elaborate funeral
procession that accompanied Mitchell’s coffin from Fifth Street Baptist Church
out to Evergreen, Mitchell was buried under a “cheap, flat stone,” typical of
the kind that mark so many graves at Evergreen.
Over the decades, the grave marker was either lost or deliberately
destroyed, both equally possible as maintenance of the cemetery declined and
vandalism was on the rise. The nearby
plot that held the remains of Mitchel’s friend and contemporary, Maggie Walker,
and her family also became choked with weeds and brush, as did all of the once
tidy cemetery grounds.
In the foreground, the plot that
contains the graves of Richmond’s
famous bank president and entrepreneur Maggie
Walker and her family
are shown in 2010 before the cemetery cleanup.
In 2011, the shameful condition of
John Mitchell, Jr.’s grave was addressed by the Black History Museum andCultural Center. An initiative to
preserve Mitchell’s burial place was a natural for the B.H.M.C.C. as the premier
collector and interpreter of the African American experience in Richmond. The
Museum, with the help and advice of members of the Mitchell family and aided by
many concerned donors, commissioned a new marker for Mitchell’s grave – one
that recognized the significance of this important figure in Virginia’s African
American history.
The name “Mitchell”
carved into the entrance of
the once overgrown family plot in Evergreen
Cemetery.
At the same time, great strides in
cleaning vegetation from Evergreen Cemetery have been made. Volunteers assembled by the Evergreen
Cemetery Clean Up Project’s coordinator John Shuck, have cleaned up acres of
the cemetery, removing tons of debris and ivy, but a massive amount of work
remains. Among the volunteer groups
working in the woods are members of Upsilon Nu Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, who
performed an amazing job clearing the hilltop plots where the Mitchell and
Walker families are buried.
Thanks to the many volunteers, the vegetation
around the Mitchell family plot
and many others nearby has been cleaned away. Here
the massive new marker
for John Mitchell, Jr. can be seen beside the grave of
Rebecca Mitchell, his mother.
The massive new stone of Georgia
granite was suitably inscribed and installed by Oakwood Monument Company. It lists Mitchell’s achievements and
emphasizes his role as an early leader in what would eventually termed the
struggle for Civil Rights in this country.
The first new grave marker in the historic part of Evergreen Cemetery
for many years finally has given this remarkable figure the recognition he so
deserved.
Showing the draft inscription and the granite slab ready
for engraving at Oakwood Monuments Co.
I
A close-up of the
inscription on the new grave marker for John Mitchell, Jr.
A ceremony of unveiling the
Mitchell monument took place on February 25, 2012. Present were representatives of the Black
History Museum, descendants and relatives of John Mitchell, Jr., Raymond Boone,
the editor and founder of the Richmond
Free Press, donors to the project, and many other proud Virginians. The ongoing clearing of plots in Evergreen,
combined with the new John Mitchell, Jr. grave marker and a recently-erected State
historical marker explaining the significance of Evergreen will all serve to
draw attention to this, one of Richmond’s most neglected African American heritage
sites.
A view of a map of the cemetery laid over an image from Google Maps.
The cleared hilltop where the Mitchell and Walker family plots are are located at the little "U" shaped area above the "X" on the image - click on the image for a larger view.
Where before there was almost no signage identifying
Evergreen, today a new historical marker honors some of the prominent African
Americans who are buried in this long-neglected cemetery.
- Selden.
Read the Richmond Planet at Chronicling America.
Important work is happening in Portsmouth too - see the web site
for the African-American Historic Cemeteries of Portsmouth friends group.
