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Cover image of Death and Rebirth in a Southern City
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Death and Rebirth in a Southern City

Richmond's Historic Cemeteries

Ryan K. Smith

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This exploration of Richmond's burial landscape over the past 300 years reveals in illuminating detail how racism and the color line have consistently shaped death, burial, and remembrance in this storied Southern capital.

Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation. Its burial grounds show the sweep of Southern history on an epic scale, from the earliest English encounters with the Powhatan at the falls of the James River through slavery, the Civil War, and the long reckoning that followed. And while the region's...

This exploration of Richmond's burial landscape over the past 300 years reveals in illuminating detail how racism and the color line have consistently shaped death, burial, and remembrance in this storied Southern capital.

Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation. Its burial grounds show the sweep of Southern history on an epic scale, from the earliest English encounters with the Powhatan at the falls of the James River through slavery, the Civil War, and the long reckoning that followed. And while the region's deathways and burial practices have developed in surprising directions over these centuries, one element has remained stubbornly the same: the color line. But something different is happening now. The latest phase of this history points to a quiet revolution taking place in Virginia and beyond. Where white leaders long bolstered their heritage and authority with a disregard for the graves of the disenfranchised, today activist groups have stepped forward to reorganize and reclaim the commemorative landscape for the remains of people of color and religious minorities.

In Death and Rebirth in a Southern City, Ryan K. Smith explores more than a dozen of Richmond's most historically and culturally significant cemeteries. He traces the disparities between those grounds which have been well-maintained, preserving the legacies of privileged whites, and those that have been worn away, dug up, and built over, erasing the memories of African Americans and indigenous tribes. Drawing on extensive oral histories and archival research, Smith unearths the heritage of these marginalized communities and explains what the city must do to conserve these gravesites and bring racial equity to these arenas for public memory. He also shows how the ongoing recovery efforts point to a redefinition of Confederate memory and the possibility of a rebirthed community in the symbolic center of the South.

The book encompasses, among others, St. John's colonial churchyard; African burial grounds in Shockoe Bottom and on Shockoe Hill; Hebrew Cemetery; Hollywood Cemetery, with its 18,000 Confederate dead; Richmond National Cemetery; and Evergreen Cemetery, home to tens of thousands of black burials from the Jim Crow era. Smith's rich analysis of the surviving grounds documents many of these sites for the first time and is enhanced by an accompanying website, www.richmondcemeteries.org. A brilliant example of public history, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City reveals how cemeteries can frame changes in politics and society across time.

Reviews

Reviews

Undoubtedly, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City is an invaluable resource for understanding deathways in Richmond and the region more broadly. At a time when the city's memorial practices are coming under increasing scrutiny, Smith's powerful text provides residents with a primer that might help us construct a more inclusive practice of memory.

Deeply researched and focused as much on the voices of those in the past and present who have used and engaged with these cemeteries as on the physical landscapes themselves, Death and Rebirth in a Southern City offers an important new framework for engaging with burial sites as part of the constantly evolving dynamics of race, class, and religion in American society.

Death and Rebirth in a Southern City: Richmond's Historic Cemeteries engages audiences on the relevance of public history as studied through the preservation of white and Black burying grounds in a city that was once the capital of the Confederacy.

This is a timely and compelling book that combines the strands of history, archaeology, ethnography, and preservation. Most importantly, it provides credibility for the voices of descendants and other community members who care deeply about these sacred and historic sites. The author has done a masterful job of providing the historic context for centuries of burials and helping the reader understand why these sites still matter today.

A timely and compelling book combining the strands of history, archaeology, ethnography, and preservation. Most importantly, Ryan K. Smith conveys the voices of descendants and other community members who care deeply about these sacred and historic burial sites.

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Book Details

Publication Date
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Available
Trim Size
6
x
9
Pages
328
ISBN
9781421439273
Illustration Description
52 b&w illus.
Table of Contents

Introduction: The Southern Dead and the Present Moment
Chapter 1. The Churchyard
Chapter 2. The African Burial Ground
Chapter 3. The New Burying Ground
Chapter 4. Grounds for the Free People of Color and

Introduction: The Southern Dead and the Present Moment
Chapter 1. The Churchyard
Chapter 2. The African Burial Ground
Chapter 3. The New Burying Ground
Chapter 4. Grounds for the Free People of Color and the Enslaved
Chapter 5. The Hebrew Cemeteries
Chapter 6. The Confederate Cemeteries
Chapter 7. The National Cemeteries
Chapter 8. The Post-Emancipation Uplift Cemeteries
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Author Bio
Ryan K. Smith
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Ryan K. Smith

Ryan K. Smith is a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of Robert Morris's Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder and Gothic Arches, Latin Crosses: Anti-Catholicism and American Church Designs in the Nineteenth Century.
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