Along a hilly, gravel road in southern Williamson County, lies Spratt Cemetery, a distant yet prevalent reminder of a once thriving African American community in Duplex. Spratt Cemetery contains many graves of prominent members of their community, including former teachers and students who attended the Lee-Buckner Rosenwald School, currently being restored by the Heritage Foundation. The significance of this sacred place extends beyond just a burial yard. Within its boundaries lies a complex system of beliefs and social practices, shaped by over a century and a half of interaction of various local cultures, producing multiple layers of history still active today.
Following the Civil War, newly freed African Americans quickly established schools, cemeteries, and churches. Of the three, churches were the cornerstone – the nucleus – that symbolized community. Churches became anchor institutions of African American communities because they also served as schools. As vital as education and religion were to African Americans so too were places of memorialization. Cemeteries were vital gathering places to properly remember and bring dignity to the dead. Enslaved, commoditized, and deprioritized by their former slaveowners, newly freed African Americans saw cemeteries as crucial tools for individuals within their communities to commemorate and remember their loved ones in a humane and dignified manner.
“For black Americans,” writes historian John Michael Vlach, “the cemetery has long had special significance. Beyond its association with the fear and awe of death, which all humans share, the graveyard was, in the past, one of the few places in America where an overt black identity could be asserted and maintained.”1
The most crucial step in preserving and protecting historic African American cemeteries is to keep their history alive. The lack of documentary evidence presents a challenge for those who seek to study and understand historic African American cemeteries. Even when they are in continual use, these cemeteries are seldom documented through deeds or other legal records. While the local black population usually retains strong ties to the property, a detailed and accurate record of many African American cemeteries can be created by seeking out local sources. For the Heritage Foundation’s preservation team, Mr. Roy Brown, who lives in the Duplex community and is an alum of the Lee-Buckner Rosenwald School, is a beacon of knowledge concerning the families buried beneath fieldstones in Spratt Cemetery. By conducting oral history interviews him and with living descendants in the area, their stories provide tremendous information on the history of a cemetery.
For our team, fieldwork includes surveying and documenting all of our county’s historic resources, including cemeteries. Yet, historic African American cemeteries can be difficult to identify. Many lies within remote locations, often on what was once the poorest or least developed land in a community.2 In our county’s rural areas, historic African American cemeteries can be hard to reach or difficult to spot during an initial survey, primarily because they may lack prominent or even visible grave markers. In Spratt cemetery, many headstones date from the early twentieth century to present day, while older stones lying further up the hill are quickly sinking into the landscape, making surveying a more in-depth process for our team.
During our reconnaissance fieldwork, we examined the landscape to note significant historic features and familiarized ourselves with the cemetery’s design and layout. Over the next few months, we hope to conduct an intensive survey, that will allow us to create a detailed research plan, involving deeds, probates, topographical maps, while documenting each visible grave, grave depressions, and individual features.
One of the most prominent features our team discovered, were the “offerings” left by family members on their loved one’s graves. In his landmark work, The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts, historian and anthropologist John Michael Vlach stated, “Across rural Afro-America the cemetery is very special. Not only is it the realm of the deceased, but it is also where we find the strongest material demonstration of African-inspired memories.”3 He observed the decorative expression in black cemeteries throughout the South reflects African religious beliefs and aesthetics. Placing personal objects on a grave might also encourage the spirit to rest easy and remain in the cemetery.4 Although the meaning of this grave custom is not clear, historians believe this tradition may be traced to West and Central West Africa, where a wide variety of items used by the dead individual are placed on their grave. 5
African American cemeteries and their descendants are usually the last remaining repositories of the history of their communities, including Duplex. As our team focused on their reconnaissance survey, several important questions arose. How many stories are contained within Spratt cemetery? How much of its history remains to be rediscovered? As we visit cemeteries, we readily witness how shifts in human geography can affect the long-term viability of these fragile historic resources for future generations. But we think there is hope for Spratt Cemetery and all Williamson County cemeteries.
As preservationists and public historians, we sense the urgency to reclaim and preserve our history. These places matter and merit our respect, protection, and offer an opportunity to preserve and reflect the voices once marginalized or left out of the historical narrative. Telling their stories through the preservation of these sacred spaces is vital to impart an authentic interpretation of Williamson County’s local African American communities, their history, and our collective past in American history.
Do you know of anyone who has a historic cemetery on their property? If so, our preservation team would enjoy the opportunity to visit so we may learn more about its history connected to Williamson County. To schedule a time for a site visit, please contact Senior Director of Preservation and Education Rachael Finch at rfinch@williamsonheriage.org.
If you would like to financially support the Heritage Foundation’s preservation and education initiatives as we document our historic resources, please Development Specialist Drew Allensworth at dallensworth@williamsonheritage.org or Chief Executive Officer Bari Beasley at bbeasley@williamsonheritage.org.
[carousel_slide id=’29094′]
1 John Michael Vlach, By the Work of Their Hands: Studies in Afro-American Folklife (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia), 109.
2 Preserving African American Historic Places, Suggestions and Sources, The Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University. p. 21-28. https://www.mtsuhistpres.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Preserving-African-American-Historic-Places.pdf (Accessed March 22, 2021.)
3 John Michael Vlach, The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts (Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978), p. 139, 147.
4 John Michael Vlach, “Funerary Customs, Black.” In The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Ed. By Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), p. 162.
5 See the online preview of History of African American Cemeteries, https://www.sciway.net/hist/chicora/gravematters-1.html (Accessed March 22, 2021.) Also see, The Afro-American Tradition in Decorative Arts, John Michael Vlach, 1978. Originally published as the catalog of a major exhibit showcased by the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vlach’s book was the first to describe and analyze the achievements of African American artists and the use of decorative arts tied to cemeteries. It is recognized as a landmark work, still a standard in the field of African American history and culture and utilized by historians, preservationists, folklorists, anthropologists, and sociologists today. Caring for Davidson County’s Cemeteries, Metropolitan Historical Commission, Nashville, TN. “Possibly the most known African American grave marking practice was the use of “offerings” on top of the grave.” https://www.nashville.gov/Portals/0/SiteContent/HistoricalCommission/docs/City%20Cemetery/Enjoying%20Davidson%20County’s%20Cemeteries.pdf (Accessed March 22, 2021.)