History, Tradition, and Culture

Black History Revealed in a Local Cemetery

Image of Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, Suitland , MD
Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, Suitland , MD

Recently, while  listening to a genealogy program on Youtube  called BlackProGen Live about free people of color (FPOC), the host, Nika Smith asked  the panel about resources for researching these families. I immediately thought about a book that I had read by African American historian, Dr. Carter G. Woodson (b.1875- d.1950). I jumped over to Wikipedia (yes, over there) to get the name of the book and saw what I thought was an odd reference to Suitland, Maryland! Wait, what? Indeed, the father of Black History month and author of many books on black history, Dr. Carter G. Woodson , had been interred  at one of Suitland’s three cemeteries, The Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. Perhaps I am the last to know, but this was an amazing discovery for me! I honestly did not believe it so I  jumped over to Find A Grave and looked it up and sure enough some one had created…