CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Community members in Charlotte's Grier Heights are cleaning up and preserving the history of a cemetery in the historically Black neighborhood.

"Most of my ancestors are buried in this cemetery, and a lot of people in the community too," said Wayne Johnson, who grew up in Grier Heights. "This community is changing, and we don't want to never forget the people who started this community."

What You Need To Know

  • Volunteers are cleaning up the cemetery behind Thompson Child & Family Focus on Saturday, Feb. 25, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
  • Community members in Grier Heights want to preserve the history and tell the story of the historically Black neighborhood
  • The vision for the cemetery is to mark the graves, include a walking trail and put up public art

Johnson and volunteers will be cleaning up the cemetery behind Thompson Child & Family Focus on North Wendover Road in Charlotte on Saturday, Feb. 25 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Johnson encourages volunteers to bring out their own yard tools, power tools, gloves and garbage bags.

Johnson says the group restoring this cemetery has already been awarded $5,000 from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to get the project going. He says once the cemetery is cleaned up, a ground-penetrating radar will survey the area to figure out exactly how many graves are on the near acre of land. He estimates there are over 60.

"We just sometimes forget our history, but it's an opportunity now to say 'not no more,' because without our history, who are we?" Johnson said.

This cleanup is at the second cemetery of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church. The church was started by formerly enslaved people in Charlotte during the Reconstruction era, following the Civil War.

"The church started at Sharon Presbyterian Church in 1831. That's when they were worshiping with the whites," Johnson said. "And then in 1867, they petitioned the church to be separated from the church, and then they put a cemetery on Colony Road."

The original location of the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery at Sharon and Colony Road is a registered historic landmark with Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

But, the congregation relocated to Grier Heights in 1926 and started another cemetery.

"They got traumatized, and they just had to relocate," Johnson said.

Johnson says he knows the history so well because his great-grandparents and uncles always told him to never forget his history.

Grier Heights is a historically Black neighborhood that started in the 1890s when Sam Billings bought 100 acres of land there. Billings is a formerly enslaved man who was the first Black man recorded in Charlotte history to buy land.

Johnson says this is part of the community's history that should not be forgotten.

The vision for the cemetery is to mark all the identified graves, create a walking path, and include public art that tells the story of Grier Heights and the people who once lived there. 

"We are going to be telling our story from Sharon Road Presbyterian Church to Grier Heights, where we ended up," Johnson said.