Greenwood Cemetery Nashville TN 2013-12-26 021

Greenwood Cemetery is situated at 1428 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville in Davidson County, Tennessee, United States. When opened in 1888, it was only the second

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

in Nashville for

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

History

The cemetery was founded by local pastor and businessman

Preston Taylor Preston Taylor (November 7, 1849April 13, 1931) was an African-American businessman, minister and philanthropist. In the early 20th century he was considered one of the most influential leaders of Nashville, Tennessee's black community. He creat ...

in 1888. Taylor had been born a slave in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

in 1849. He settled in Nashville in 1884, where he became a well known minister and businessman. In 1887 he conceived the idea of establishing a cemetery for African Americans on of land near Buttermilk Ridge at Elm Hill Road. He purchased the land in 1887 for $30,000, and in 1888 he established Greenwood Cemetery. Its purpose was to provide low cost, first class burial plots for African-American residents of Nashville. Concurrently he established a

mortuary A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cu ...

, Taylor Funeral Company, at 449 North Cherry Street, now Fourth Avenue (not related to today's Taylor Funeral Home of Nashville). Taylor operated the cemetery himself until his death in 1931, bequeathing it to the National Christian Missionary Convention of the

Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

. The cemetery remains a nonprofit organization. (Taylor also established Greenwood Park, the first park in Nashville open to African-Americans, in 1904.)

Notable interments

When Taylor died in 1931 he was interred at Greenwood after a full week of memorial activities. His wife Georgia Gordon Taylor is also buried there. Other notable individuals interred there include Arna Bontemps, William Edmondson (sculptor), Charles S. Johnson, John Merritt James C. Napier,

DeFord Bailey DeFord Bailey (December 14, 1899 – July 2, 1982) was an American country music and blues star from the 1920s until 1941. He was one of the first performers to be introduced on Nashville radio station WSM's Grand Ole Opry, the first African-A ...

, Marshall Keeble, Mattie Eliza Coleman, and

John Houston Burrus John Houston Burrus (February 22, 1849 - March 27, 1917) was an educator in Nashville, Tennessee and Lorman, Mississippi. He was a member of the first class of students at Fisk University in Nashville and when that class graduated became among th ...

References

External links

* * {{Coord, 36.145, -86.725, type:landmark_region:US-TN, display=title African-American history in Nashville, Tennessee Cemeteries in Nashville, Tennessee African-American cemeteries in Tennessee 1888 establishments in Tennessee Cemeteries established in the 1880s

History

Notable interments

See also

References

External links