Restoration of Knoxville’s oldest Black cemetery highlights importance to city’s history

GRAVES have sunk and headstones have toppled in the oldest Black cemetery in Knoxville. Six decades of neglect have left it overrun with invasive plants and trees.

Established in 1836, it’s the final resting place for about 5,000-6,000 enslaved Africans, freedman and their descendants. When driving down Fuller Avenue and Addison Street in East Knoxville, however, you might not have even known this sacred place existed.

But George Kemp is helping to bring new life to Eastport Cemetery, better known as Good Citizens Cemetery, or simply Citizens Cemetery.

Kemp is dedicated to honoring the people buried in the forgotten cemetery and helping to share their overlooked stories, stories that even he didn’t know about while growing up a street over from the burial ground.

“That’s something that just should have been standard information, getting our story out, the history,” Kemp, whose father and other family members are buried in Citizens, told Knox News. “This is important for everybody to know.”

The cemetery is on the same street where Knoxville’s first Black church originally stood. Greater Warner Tabernacle African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was established in 1845 and reportedly served as a station on the Underground Railroad. The church is now located on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

CITIZENS CEMETERY RECLAIMED BY COMMUNITY

Kemp is the president of the Knoxville Re-Animation Coalition, a community-based organization restoring Black cemeteries like Odd Fellows, another historic Black cemetery in Knoxville. Since 2020, he has focused on Citizens, beginning to clear its overgrowth, plot mapping and identifying sunken graves, applying for grants and funding to aid in the restoration and working to have the site designated as a historical landmark.

Throughout 2022, Earthadelic Landscape and Construction donated equipment and crews to clear overgrown areas and plant grass seed, Knoxville’s Urban Forestry Division eliminated leaning and downed trees and Ijams Nature Center’s Weed Wrangle volunteer group helped to remove invasive plants.

Dozens of volunteers from the community and University of Tennessee students also helped with the restoration process last year, including nearly 100 people associated with the fraternity, Lambda Kai Alpha.

“We've had good support from a variety of organizations that like what we're doing and they're constantly scheduling days they can come back and work,” Kemp said.

A big boost came from Tatianna Griffin, a UT graduate anthropology student who conducted her thesis on Citizens Cemetery and how its restoration is representative of Knoxville’s Black community combating erasure and reclaiming history and a sense of place.

Kemp is appreciative of the volunteers, but one of his biggest goals for 2023 is to increase the involvement of those who are located near the cemetery and within its own community. He’s reached out to the Boys & Girls Club at Walter P. Taylor, art program Canvas Can Do Miracles and several nearby churches.

GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

East Tennessee cemetery researcher and historian Robert McGinnis has recovered hundreds of the forgotten names in Citizens, and Robert “Bob” Booker, historian and Beck Cultural Exchange Center co-founder, has helped Kemp understand some of their historical connections to Knoxville.

Here are just a few of the significant people buried in Citizens Cemetery:

Gabriella Bell

• Gabriella Bell was the first woman of color to petition for her freedom in Knox County Chancery Court in 1842 for illegally being enslaved.

• “She is considered, in my opinion, the first woman of color to deal with civil rights in Knoxville, and she was going up against a powerful family,” Kemp said.

• She was also one of the first people buried in Citizens Cemetery.

Joshua Cobb

• Joshua Cobb was a respected educator in Knox County. He served many of the Black schools in the area, including being the first principal of Maynard Elementary School.

• He was part of the first class to graduate Knoxville College in 1879 after attending four academic years. The college opened in 1875.

• Cobb was the father of famed band music leader St. Clair Cobb and poet and artist Ruth Cobb Brice.

Joe Etter

• Joe Etter is one of the first African American casualties of the 1919 Knoxville race riots.

• He died after trying to capture a machine gun one of the Tennessee National Guard soldiers was firing.

• Etter was a storekeeper and a Spanish-American War veteran.

James Mason

• James Mason was Knoxville’s first Black property owner and taxpayer.

• He was born into slavery but had been taught to read and allowed to earn money when not needed by his owners. After buying his freedom and the abolishment of slavery, he used his savings to buy a house and a lot on West Cumberland Avenue in 1866.

• Mason established a school for Black deaf children and was a founding member of Shiloh Presbyterian Church.

David Scaggs

• Known as “Uncle David,” Scaggs was a jockey turned barber.

• After moving to Knoxville in 1856, he operated two barbershops on Gay Street and was a founding member of Shiloh Presbyterian Church.

RECLAIMING THEIR NAMES

Tatianna Griffin was able to build on McGinnis' work. Through plot mapping, digging into records and collecting data, she re-identified 80 people resting in the cemetery. She graduated last year but is willing to help Kemp and Knoxville Re-Animation Coalition however she can, including enlisting assistance from UT’s anthropology department in her absence.

Here is a partial list of people whose headstones Griffin was able to discover and record during her project:

• Cicero Frazier

• Martha Davis Sherwood

• Rev. Henry T. Wright

• Harriet Smith

• Horace Maynard

• Rev. Anna Bell Nelson

• William Ivey

• Laura Vance

• Williams T. Martin

• Rhoda Mason

The progress (so far) at Citizens has been meaningful for Kemp, who has dedicated his retirement to revitalizing the cemetery and leading KRC’s efforts.

“We've just been blessed because I had no idea, I didn't know where it was coming from. I just knew it needed to be done. It's coming together and I just hope it continues to grow,” Kemp told Knox News. “You want a respectful place.”

But the work isn't done. Kemp is encouraging more community members to get involved with the project. Once additional sections are cleared and even more names have been reclaimed, he plans to organize a community celebration to honor the legacy of those resting in Citizens Cemetery.

Devarrick Turner is a trending news reporter for Knox News. He can be reached by email at devarrick.turner@knoxnews.com. Follow Devarrick on Twitter @dturner1208. Enjoy exclusive content and premium perks while supporting strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Community organization restores oldest Black cemetery in Knoxville