“They should just come and be able to enjoy the place and spend that time with their loved one.”Ĭorrigan also helps people find their ancestors’ graves, as many of the gravestones are toppled over or cracked from improper landscape maintenance. “I don't think that descendants should have to come and clean up a cemetery,” she said. She’s spent the past two years bringing awareness, organizing cleanups and trying to get local institutions involved at the cemetery. “Pretty much half of the cemetery now is overgrown into thick brush that makes the graves inaccessible to descendants,” said Aja Corrigan, founder of the Saving Washington Park initiative. Louis police the first principals of Sumner and Vashon high schools Harris-Stowe State University professors and countless other community leaders.Īfter decades of desecration, flooding and overgrowth, volunteers are now working to bring Washington Park Cemetery back from the brink. Kraemer Ira Cooper, the first Black sergeant and lieutenant in the St.
Vaughn, the attorney on the landmark civil rights case Shelley v. More than 42,000 people are buried there, including George L. At one point, Washington Park Cemetery was the largest African American cemetery in the St. Louis Lambert International Airport and mere steps from I-70, is a century-old Black cemetery. Louis County, near the southeast tip of St. Standing water is constantly present due to a natural underground spring in the area. Louis Public Radio One section of Washington Park Cemetery is in a particularly dire state of disrepair.