Woodland Cemetery

The story of Woodland Cemetery began in 1891 when the Greenwood Memorial Association purchased thirty acres of farmland, called the "Hedge Plain," on the northern edge of the City of Richmond. Soon after, Greenwood was forced to close the cemetery due to objections from white landowners.

In the late 1800’s, Richmond Planet Editor John Mitchell Jr. played a major role in the economic development and the civic uplift of the Black community in Richmond. He attacked all areas of segregation, including that of the resting places of Black Richmonders. He helped establish the Repton Land Corporation to buy, sell, and manage property for Black Richmonders to reside upon or use for amusement and outdoor recreation. 

As nearby Evergreen and East End Cemeteries thrived through the early 1900s, Black leaders, including John Mitchell Jr., returned their focus to the Hedge Plain site. In 1917, Mitchell created the Woodland Cemetery Corporation, which then acquired the site, starting the cemetery we know today.

The establishment of Woodland Cemetery helped to address two primary concerns at the time: capacity limits at nearby cemeteries of Evergreen and East End, and threats that the City of Richmond would sell the Cemeteries of Barton Heights, requiring the removal those interred to make room for developers to construct housing exclusively for white residents.

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The creation of Woodland Cemetery is a story of resistance. By the time Woodland Cemetery was established in 1917, in the years following the war, political efforts to restrict Black power and space increased in intensity. Even as post-war reconstruction began, the same leaders who held office during the war continued to lead the post-war government and continue their systemic oppression of the Black citizens of Richmond. Political wards were created in Richmond, including Jackson Ward, with the intention of restricting Black voting power through the use of gerrymandered districts. By 1888, Richmond’s new street-car system began to radically reshape not only the boundaries of the city, but also its racial makeup. Wealthier, white residents were able to move out of downtown in favor of the street-car suburbs while poorer Black residents were restricted to staying in Richmond due to restrictive deeds that prevented Black folks from owning a home in the suburbs. By 1911, Richmond had adopted its first residential segregation ordinance, further restricting Black power and space. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down residential segregation ordinances by 1917, enforcement of this Supreme Court decision would largely go unenforced until the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement. 

The ongoing restoration of Woodland Cemetery recognizes and illuminates the cultural landscape of Richmond, Virginia and beyond, making more visible the history and people who built and inhabited some of the most culturally influential neighborhoods in the city. The design of the cemetery highlights noteworthy figures, such as the Reverend John Jasper, founder of the Sixth Mount Zion Church. John Jasper’s obelisk stands atop the hill, looking out upon the cemetery and upon the city in the distance with reverence. Visitors to the cemetery inevitably pass his grave site and obelisk on their way to the cemetery’s chapel, detailing the level of planning that went into designing Woodland as a landmark of reflection. Active features were placed in distinguished areas with roads and paths that radiate around them, guiding visitors to celebrate not only the burials of their own relatives, but those of other important figures who contributed to the city’s cultural, religious, academic, and overall growth for generations. Woodland Cemetery persevered and thrived at a time when Black spaces were actively being dismantled and dispersed.

At the beginning of the 20th century, many of the Richmond cemeteries accessible to Black residents were overgrown, while others were segregated, and others still only provided plots for Black folks in desolate eroding areas. John Mitchell Jr. wanted Woodland Cemetery to be an uplifting space for the Black community of Richmond. His commitment to creating an exceptional space was evident in the development of Woodland, as over $40,000 ($914,000 adjusted for inflation 2022) was spent on crafting a space that would exude pride in Black culture while providing a safe place for Black residents to enjoy. Black pride gleaned from the creation of Woodland, which some called “the finest in the world for our people” and “will not be second to any burial ground”. Subsequently, Woodland’s creation during this period was a recognition and celebration of Black history, culture, and community in the City of Richmond. 

Woodland’s distinct arrow shape is similar to Maury Cemetery in Richmond. The Cemetery generally points to the North as a callback to how enslaved Black folks looked north for their freedom. The Cemetery was laid out with concrete sidewalks, roads and curbs. Each of the roads was named after predominant persons, places, and biblical names of the era. Within the circular design, the inner road was named after abolitionist Fredrick Douglas; the other road was named after Booker T. Washington. Black cemeteries include many circular patterns, as Christians used circles as a symbol of eternity because they represented a never-ending love of God. 

Woodland was founded in part due to the scarcity of capacity in East End and Evergreen Cemeteries. This area of land was originally called the "Hedge Plain,” and was bought by The Greenwood Memorial Association. The Association was forced to close the property due to objections from white landowners.

“We want to give tours to share the history with the entire area. A lot of people want to help and give, but they just don’t know what we’re doing. Anybody coming to the City of Richmond and Henrico ought to be enticed to come here so we can tell them our story.” - Marvin Harris

In the combined words of Foundation members Kathleen Harrell and John Shuck, those buried at Woodland are poets, artists, sculptors, nurses, doctors, architects, builders, and innovators - many of the people who helped make Richmond the city it is today.

Below is a map showing sites of interest within the cemetery. To learn about each location, click on the pins on the map or the text in the list to the left.

The landscape of Woodland Cemetery has experienced great change throughout the cemetery's history. Below are image sliders that allow you to compare the landscape of Woodland Cemetery at various points in its history.

The ownership of Woodland Cemetery changed hands many times throughout the 20th and early 21st Centuries. The value placed on Woodland Cemetery as a cultural landscape was not the same between the various owners. The volatility in the quality of stewardship led to periods of deterioration in the cemetery as evidenced by the growth of a forest in the northern section of the cemetery.

"It's not because nobody cared," emphasizes Kathleen Harrell in regard to the previous unkempt state of the cemetery. Before the state contributed funding for perpetual care, the responsibility of maintaining burial sites rested primarily on the families of those interred. For many, it was financially unsustainable, and over time younger generations moved away leaving the work to an aging population of caretakers. Transportation and the declining safety of the cemetery were also barriers for caretakers, and as people began choosing to be buried in other places, its upkeep became economically unfeasible for the grounds keeping service as well.

One system of racial oppression that made perpetual care for Black cemeteries difficult was the practice of Redlining. This was a discriminatory practice in which services (financial and otherwise) are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment. The decision to classify a neighborhood as hazardous was racially motivated; leaving residents of Black neighborhoods with few financial resources to receive a home loan to move or funds to invest in their own community. "African-American cemeteries are attached to communities that have been red-lined and segregated out of billions of dollars of wealth that could have been passed down through the generations, and the usual perpetual care funds that are replenished regularly in burial businesses that cater to whites simply aren’t available at Greenwood or Randolph or Baltimore’s Mt. Auburn.”-  Zach Mortice 

"By the time they sold the cemetery to a local entrepreneur, in 1979, business was slowing, and throughout the 1980s and ’90s, as burials became fewer and income dried up, the site began to decline.”-  Zach Mortice 

As previously mentioned, Woodland had become overgrown by the time Harris bought it in 2020, despite the efforts of descendants to maintain family grave sites. Above, you can see the stark contrast between the state of the grave sites in 2019, and the state of them today. In the past three years, the dedicated efforts of Harris and the Woodland Restoration Foundation have allowed the cemetery to turn a corner. "We need to bring this back to what it looked like back in 1917 when it first opened," says Harris. "We've got a ways to go, but we've got to do it."

So how can folks like you help sustain Woodland Cemetery? There are plenty of ways to get involved, but as Descendants Council Member LaToya Gray Sparks emphasizes, “autonomy and agency matter the most.” According to Marvin Harris and the Woodland Restoration Foundation, one of the best things community members can do to support Woodland is to donate their time and labor. You can learn about regular work days or reach out to the Foundation to schedule separate volunteer sessions on their  website .

Don’t have time to volunteer? You can still make a valuable contribution by donating to Woodland. Monetary donations can be made  here , or you can reach out to inquire about buying a Memorial Brick that will be incorporated into the fountain. Donations of equipment may be welcome as well; contact Marvin Harris to learn more about what equipment may be needed. 

Local churches and other institutions, especially those which have the descendants of Woodland residents amongst their community, are encouraged to find ways to get involved. The only way to accomplish this, though, is to get the word out. As Marvin is quoted as saying above, “Anybody coming to the City of Richmond and Henrico ought to be enticed to come here so we can tell them our story.”

Selden Richardson, Built By Blacks: African American Architecture and Neighborhoods in Richmond (Richmond: Dietz Press, 2007)

Veronica Davis, Here I Lay My Burdens Down: A History of the Black Cemeteries of Richmond, Virginia (Richmond: Dietz Press, 2003)

Hardstew Visits Pennsylvania. (1917, May 5). Savannah Tribune, 35, Three. Access World News – Historical and Current.

Prototype plot map for Woodland Cemetery, produced by a partnership between Woodland Restoration Foundation and Deep Run High School’s Center for Information Technology

This story map was created by students in Dr. Meghan Gough's Sustainable Community Development class at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Spring of 2023. This project was completed in collaboration with the Woodland Restoration Foundation, and informed by the knowledge and expertise of the descendant community and advocates in Richmond. It is intended to be a virtual guided tour of Woodland Cemetery, which is one of Richmond's historically Black cemeteries. Through the integration of archival research, one-on-one interviews, and spatial analysis, this map tells a story of the past, present, and future of Woodland Cemetery.