Washington DC – Georgetown, one of present-day Washington’s most expensive neighborhoods, used to be a hub of Black life in the US capital.
Little remains of this history since gentrification began in the 1930s, but remnants of its African-American roots can be found in cemeteries that have suffered from decades of disrepair.
The Black Georgetown Foundation is working to preserve the memories of the estimated eight-to-ten thousand people buried in two cemeteries: of Mount Zion Church, one of the oldest Black churches in the city, and the Female Union Band Society, founded in 1802 and 1842, respectively.
“We have a spiritual obligation to uplift and preserve the memories of those who are buried here,” said the foundation president, Neville Waters, whose great-grandfather Charles Turner – freed from slavery when he was six years old – is among those interred there…