Jim Crow in Savannah's Parks in the 20th Century presented by Jeffrey M. Ofgang: Cemeteries

Current view of entrance to Laurel Grove Cemetery North, the white section under Jim Crow

The Park and Tree Commission also administered Savannah's municipal cemeteries. The city established Laurel Grove Cemetery in 1852 and explicitly divided it in sections by race. Bonaventure Cemetery was established privately in 1846 and purchased by Savannah in 1907. It remained segregated until the civil rights era in the 1960s.

Laurel Grove's whites-only northern section was carefully laid out and tended. White soldiers who died during the Civil War were buried in Laurel Grove North, which became practically a shrine to the Confederate cause.

Postcard courtesy of City of Savannah Municipal Archives on behalf of V. & J. Duncan Antique Maps & Prints

Laurel Grove was another venue to demean Savannah's Black residents. When the cemetery opened, an ordinance threatened a fine for any white person who tampered with the monuments, horticulture or fixtures, but Black people guilty of the same offense were also subject to a beating.

City officials and white residents were uneasy about Black people treading on the cemetery's whites-only section for any reason. The Parks Commission minutes of October 6, 1919 state that the keeper of Laurel Grove North issued a rule "allowing no Negroes to enter" because "certain ladies felt intimidated by Black lot caretakers." At the same meeting, the commission considered the letter from Miss M.J. Stiles asking permission for "her old Black servant" to continue caring for a family plot in the white portion. The commission approved on the condition that she supply a photograph of the Black caretaker.

The Black section, Laurel Grove South, grew haphazardly, and early burial locations were poorly documented. In 1959, Mayor W. Lee Mingledorff confronted the Park and Tree Commission at what was apparently a contentious meeting at the home of the chairman, W.G. Morrell, called to discuss a single topic. The Mayor complained that the commission still did not have a list and a map with the identity and exact location of each person buried in Laurel Grove South. This was a highly specific complaint, perhaps the result of blowback from constituents or the NAACP, or recognition of growing Black voting strength in Savannah before the 1960 elections. (In 1960, 57 percent of eligible Black voters in Savannah were registered to vote, a higher proportion than white voters.)

A commission member was appointed at the meeting to start compiling the cemetery records, and Mingledorff said to recruit as much help as he needed. Then,the chairman turned the tables on the Mayor and asked if there were plans to remove the open sewers from Laurel Grove South, the job of the Public Works department. (Read the minutes.)

The City Council chose the first Black supervisor for Laurel Grove South more than forty years after it opened. The city neglected to properly finance the upkeep of the Black section for a century.  Parks Commission minutes from December 1929 note obliquely that "the matter of the condition of the colored section of Laurel Grove came up for discussion." Repeatedly during the 1950s, the Savannah Tribune editorialized about the poor condition of Laurel Grove South, parceling out the blame between the Park and Tree Commission and plot-owners who did not clear the weeds from gravesites. In June 1956, the Tribune targeted the commission for the cemetery’s "deplorable" condition and invited the commission to visit Laurel Grove, "where graves are hidden by snake-infested weeds, wild shrubbery and untrimmed trees." In 1958, the Tribune said the city began an effort the year before to clear weeds and unwanted trees but stopped after a few weeks. Tellingly, the newspaper stated that “an editorial of this sort would not be necessary if Savannah had a Negro representative in City government.”

Current entrance to Laurel Grove Cemetery South, the Black section under Jim Crow

Mayor Herman Myers boasted in his 1906 Annual Report that the city separated the Black and white sections of Laurel Grove Cemetery by a barbed-wire fence, "breaking the connection between the two, and making each one distinctive." In 1967, the Black and white sections were severed completely by a new Interstate 16 exit.

An Interstate 16 exit separates Laurel Grove Cemetery North from the southern section designated for Black residents under Jim Crow (Google Maps)