The city of Richmond’s latest weekly newsletter, “Hey Richmond,” offers a key update in the saga of the city’s African American cemeteries.
Briefly, in 2024, the city of Richmond formally acquired ownership of East End Cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery, and Forest View Cemetery, three African American cemeteries that had fallen into legal limbo with the dissolution of the Enrichmond Foundation. Leading up to that acquisition, the city’s department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities held community conversations regarding the future of those important sites, particularly with stakeholders like the Friends of East End, the Descendants Council of Greater Richmond Virginia, and the Friends of Forest View Cemetery.
After the acquisition of those cemeteries, the partner relationship among the groups continued, coordinated by new hires and assignments in the city’s Cemetery Division within Parks and Recreation. Kimberly Jackson was hired as Community Engagement Manager for the Cemeteries, Priscilla Wright was named Volunteer Program Coordinator, and Maxfield Shea was hired as senior groundskeeper, working with a broader grounds team including Rashawn Jones and Zyon Wyatt.
The result has been a night and day difference in the model and results compared with the cemeteries’ previous owner. We are even seeing moments of optimism, spilling over into the city’s other, previously marginalized historic cemeteries like the Barton Heights Cemeteries.
On Friday, February 27, 2026, a class of University of Richmond students in Doug Winiarski’s “Richmond: City of the Dead” class toured the Barton Heights Cemeteries and found that dozens of centuries-old grave markers were cleaned of overgrowth and marked with care to prevent further damage from lawn care equipment. A class of Virginia Commonwealth University students in Pamela Turner’s “Topics in Animation: Cemetery Restoration” class just happened to arrive around the same time, with both classes of students finding new inspiration in the often overlooked site together. And the two classes had the good fortune to find Maxfield Shea hard at work onsite clearing the overgrown southern boundary of the cemeteries, where he had uncovered newly-discovered grave markers and plots. Maxfield paused his work to reflect on the meaning of it all with the students.
This issue of “Hey Richmond” captures all these promising developments well, providing a thoughtful review of recent steps, including a timeline, quotes from various stakeholders, and powerful photographs. Here’s hoping the momentum continues.