Graham Perry, Historic Cemetery Preservation Specialist at the Tennessee Historical Commission, is a native Tennessean, with roots in both Nashville and Memphis. He has a BBA from Belmont University, an MA in African American History from the University of Memphis, an MA in Education from Christian Brothers University, and had completed PhD coursework at the the University of Memphis prior to returning to Nashville in 2008 to serve as the Curator of Social History at the Tennessee State Museum. At the museum, he curated several award-winning exhibits, including We Shall Not Be Moved: 50^th Anniversary of Tennessee’s Civil Rights Sit-ins (2010), Tennessee’s Intentional Communities: Examining The Farm, Nashoba, Rugby and Ruskin (2014), I Have a Voice: African-American Music in Tennessee (2017), State of Sound: Tennessee’s Musical Heritage (2018), and Tennessee Transforms: 1945-present (2018), the latter of which is on permanent display at the new Tennessee State Museum.  Since 2019, he has been developing THC’s Historic Cemetery Preservation Program, the purpose of which is to provide information, education and other resources to help facilitate historic cemetery preservation throughout the state.

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