Washington Park Cemetery facts for kids

Washington Park Cemetery is a historic African-American cemetery active from 1920 until 1980 and located in Berkeley, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. It has drawn attention for large-scale disinterment in the wake of construction, and local clean up efforts due to its long-term state of disrepair.

History

Washington Park Cemetery was founded in 1920 by businessmen Andrew Henry Watson and Joseph John Hauer as a for-profit, perpetual-care burial site for African Americans, eventually becoming the largest African-American cemetery in the St. Louis region at the time. Whites opposed the construction of the cemetery and though Watson and Hauer were supportive of segregationist notions regarding land rights, equal interment, and use of public parks, they defended the rights of black visitors to picnic on the grounds. As a result, they were the subject of criticism for, “disrupting bucolic country land with the presence of black St. Louisans.”

Beginning in the latter half of the century, the cemetery was impacted by three construction projects. In the late 1950s, 75 acres were claimed for Interstate 70, which bisected the cemetery's property and paved over graves. In 1972, an expansion to the St. Louis Lambert International Airport claimed nine acres. In 1992, an expansion to St. Louis's light rail system, MetroLink, claimed more land. Across these three projects, an estimated 11,974 to 13,600 bodies were disinterred and relocated, resulting in some families losing track of their ancestral graves.

Present-day

The cemetery ceased business operations in 1980, but has since drawn the attention of activists and media for its management, disrepair, and for billboards placed in the cemetery's grounds. Those billboards have, as of August 2020, been removed from the cemetery after a lawsuit settlement between billboard company DDI Media and area resident Wanda Brandon's activist group, the Washington Park Cemetery Anti-Desecration League.

The city of Berkeley purchased the cemetery in 2019 for $30. Restoration efforts at the cemetery by various volunteer groups are ongoing, in hopes of turning this into a heritage site.

Other nearby historic African American cemetery include the Greenwood Cemetery (1874), Father Dickson Cemetery (1903), and Quinette Cemetery (1866).

Notable burials

• Miles Dewey Davis Jr. (1898–1962) – dental surgeon and father of jazz musician Miles Davis.
• Joseph E. Mitchell (1876–1952) and William Mitchell (1896–1945) – brothers who co-founded the St. Louis Argus.
• Charles Hubbard Thompson (1891–1964) – ragtime pianist and composer, known for "Lily Rag."
• George L. Vaughn (1885–1950) – attorney, known for representing J.D. Shelley in the Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer (1948).