Black Cemetery
The Black Cemetery was a former cemetery located on the grounds of the Saginaw Lime plant south of Saginaw and believed to have primarily housed the remains of workers at the plant and their relatives.
The cemetery was established before 1910 and the last burial took place on the site in the 1950s. When it was abandoned the cemetery contained approximately 163 graves of which only five had markers. The oldest known burial was of Julia Christian (May 15, 1894 - September 28, 1911)
In 2008 Carmeuse Lime and Stone, the owners of the facility now known as the Dravo Lime Plant, paid to have the graves relocated to a cemetery nearby behind a building shared by Galilee Missionary Baptist Church and Mt Pleasant AME Church. An archeology team from the University of Alabama performed the work and recorded the remaining markers under guidelines set by the Alabama Historical Commission. The reinterment of the remains followed the same layout found in the historical cemetery site.
References
- Daniels, Malcomb (July 9, 2008) "Churches make room." 'The Birmingham News