Last Miles of the Way

Yesterday a long caravan of cars in a funeral procession rolled slowly east on Washington Street. The hearse in the lead was making its way to the cemetery, to stop at the gravesite of the newly departed. Though not ever viewed as places of great joy, cemeteries have a quiet tranquility that pervades even the most profound expression of grief. But they are also an outstanding cultural resource, for collected within their boundaries are artifacts of past and present, persons both ordinary and distinguished, landscapes both grand and humble. In Greenville, a special cultural treasure lies within the gates of Richland Cemetery. Established in 1884, and named to the National Register of Historic Places, it is one of the first African-American burial grounds in the city.

Richland Cemetery is relatively small, situated on about six gently sloped acres behind the Greenville Recycling Center off Stone Avenue. Though the signs say that the grounds close at dusk, the main gate is open, an invitation to explore the wealth of historical information that waits in perpetuity.

Most of the gravestones are diminutive obelisks or tablets. Some family plots are outlined in bricks or concrete blocks, others delineated only by the close collections of markers. Here and there, remnants of short lengths of iron pipes protrude from concrete slabs. The delicate flutes of a conch shell emerge from a headstone. Hairy spines of yucca plants bristle in corners. Majestic old trees like oaks and evergreens tower over, providing shade as well as being symbols of eternal life. All of these reveal a seamless blend of both Victorian and African funerary traditions. 

Slaves brought to South Carolina from the West African coast continued to incorporate their Bakongo culture in their everyday lives. They believed in one god and an afterlife in a world populated by spirits. Their graves were an important link to communicate with those spirits, whose world was thought to be turned upside down under the world of the living and connected to it by water.

Many slaves adopted Christian beliefs while they continued to practice African traditions. The word "cemetery" comes from a Latin word meaning "sleeping place." The Victorians in particular saw the tomb as a final home, a place for the living to visit the dead. Many of the graves of this period have both headstones and footstones. Footstones are smaller and not carved, though sometimes they carry initials. Between the two stones, like the headboard and footboard of a bed, lies the earthly bed for the deceased, a reflection of the survivors' belief that the deceased is "sleeping" until the final resurrection.

At Richland, graves follow the Christian tradition of burial with heads to the west so that the dead will not have to turn to hear Gabriel's trumpet sound in the eastern sunrise. Some people also believe the dead were buried that way so they could face their homeland of Africa.

The cemetery includes over 1,400 documented grave sites, and most of the tombstones are in good condition, serving as a veritable "who's who" of some of the most influential black citizens of Greenville: Cora Chapman, one of the first black nurses; William Sewell, a contractor who built Sterling High School and the S.C. Franks Mortuary; Hattie Logan Duckett, founder of the Phyllis Wheatley Center; Elias Holloway, businessman and writer; and distinguished ministers Rev. J. W. Lykes, Rev. J. F. Greene, Rev. Allen Richard Burke, Rev. C. L. Logan, Rev. B. Perry Murray, Rev. S. W. Williams, Rev. B. A. Lykes, Rev. B. E. Dolphin, and Rev. J. L. Fisher. Beloved teachers include Mesolonghi Bowels, Jesse L. Bates, Anna Richardson, Ella Mae Logan, Florence Lykes, and principal Lena White.