Brown Fellowship Society Cemetery and Meeting Hall on Pitt Street, 1904, courtesy of the Holloway Family Collection, Avery Research Center. The Brown Fellowship Society, which had operated a cemetery on Pitt Street since 1794, relocated to a plot between the Friendly Union and Humane & Friendly Society cemeteries in 1956.
Throughout Charleston’s history, African American communities were denied equal access to land and financial resources for the dignified burial of their family members. During the antebellum period, many free African Americans lived in an uncertain social limbo; while some were allowed to worship in segregated spaces within predominantly White churches, Black Charlestonians were almost universally excluded from their graveyards.[1] In response, groups of freedmen formed mutual aid organizations, known as burial societies, to create their own cemeteries and help defray burial costs. Many of these societies continued to operate after the abolition of slavery as important social institutions for Black autonomy and celebration of cultural identity, and some are still active today.
African American burial societies served an important role as an early form of health and life insurance, and cooperative financial institutions for Black communities who were otherwise denied access to social services. Beyond providing a final resting place for its members, membership dues supported other benefits, including assistance during time of illness or the death of a family member, particularly for widows and children. It was also a means for members to pool financial resources to provide loans or facilitate Black purchase of property.[2]
Burial societies also historically reflected the complex racial hierarchy of antebellum Charleston. Membership of some groups, like the Brown Fellowship Society, was originally exclusive to wealthier, lighter-skinned men of color who were more likely to be landowners, entrepreneurs, and even slaveholders.[3] Black women were historically barred from being members of most burial societies, but were allowed to be buried alongside male family members.[4] Following the emancipation of enslaved people in 1863 and the subsequent entrenchment of racial segregation during the Jim Crow era, African American burial societies generally became less exclusive based on skin color and socioeconomic status, and more representative of Charleston’s diverse Black communities.[5]
From the 1850s through 1950s, many African American burial societies established cemeteries in close proximity on the northern Charleston peninsula in an area now known as the Charleston Cemetery Historic District (CCHD). Designated a National Register Historic District in 2017, the CCHD is a collection of cemeteries of diverse religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Of the CCHD’s 23 cemeteries, 16 are historically African American burial grounds, including eight African American burial society cemeteries. The burial society cemeteries, bounded approximately by Cunnington, Huguenin, Skurvin, and Prosper Streets, comprise one of the most intact landscapes of its kind in the country and include a diverse collection of headstones, representing a variety of periods, styles, and iconography.[6]
For centuries, discriminatory land use practices disproportionately affected Black burial sites, and often led to their seizure and sale for redevelopment, making surviving African American cemeteries even more critical to protect.[7] African American burial societies and their associated cemeteries are significant to Black history in Charleston as examples of mutual aid, which allowed the betterment of individual lives through collective efforts, and as physical places to honor and experience the underrepresented contributions of African American communities to the cultural heritage of the Lowcountry.
Map of Charleston Cemetery Historic District. Graphic by Laurel M. Fay, 2024.
Inset map of Charleston Cemetery Historic District. Graphic by Laurel M. Fay, 2024. The Humane & Friendly Society, Friendly Union Society, Brotherly Association, Christian Benevolent Society, and Unity & Friendship Society cemeteries all formed in 1856 as the earliest African American burial society cemeteries to form in the District, and were designed similarly to neighboring white cemeteries reflective of the Rural Cemetery Movement. Post-emancipation cemeteries like those of the Lewis Christian Union (1879) and Reserve Fellowship Society (1884) feature landscape design less characteristic of the white ideal.
Charleston Cemetery Historic District Task Force
Although some African American burial society cemeteries are still active today, society membership has largely dwindled since the mid-20th century and many of these cemeteries face stewardship challenges.[8] The Charleston Cemetery Historic District (CCHD) Task Force was formed in 2013 in response to this growing need to preserve the District’s endangered burial grounds, particularly those associated with African American burial societies. The Task Force includes representatives from many of the contributing cemeteries and is charged with ensuring the ongoing preservation and maintenance of the CCHD’s burial grounds as important places of remembrance and reflection.[9]
African American Burial Society Cemeteries
Brown Fellowship Society
One of the earliest known African American burial societies in the city, the Brown Fellowship Society formed in 1790 and established a cemetery on Pitt Street in 1794, which was seized by the City of Charleston for unpaid taxes in 1935 and sold to the Catholic Diocese of Charleston. The Pitt Street cemetery and the c. 1902 Meeting Hall on the site were razed and redeveloped in the mid-20th century as a parking lot for Bishop England High School, which was replaced by College of Charleston’s Addlestone Library in 2001. After the seizure of the original cemetery, the Society purchased a new plot in the CCHD between Cunnington Avenue and Pershing Streets in 1956 (see #23 on map), where several historic gravestones were relocated but no bodies were reinterred.[10]
Robert De Large, a prominent Reconstruction-era politician who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1871 to 1873, was buried in the Pitt Street cemetery in 1874.[11]
Brotherly Association
The Brotherly Association of Charleston (Brotherly Association) was founded in 1856 and opened its cemetery on the corner of Lemon and Skurvin Streets (see #5 on map) the same year.[12] Established before the abolition of slavery, White trustees were required for the cemetery’s incorporation by the state legislature. In 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War, Brotherly Association members successfully sued to remove the White trustees from their organization.
The burial ground contains the grave of Thomas Ezekiel Miller (1849-1938), Congressman for South Carolina from 1889 to 1891; Miller was one of the last African American South Carolinians elected to Congress in the last decade of the 19th century as Black voters were increasingly disenfranchised under Jim Crow era legislation.[13]
Friendly Union Society
The Friendly Union Society was formed in 1813 as a relief society for widows and orphans, and its cemetery on Cunnington Avenue (see #6 on map) was established in 1856.[14] Notable burials in the cemetery include Dr. William Crum (1859-1912), a physician specializing in tuberculosis who was appointed Port of Charleston tax collector by President Theodore Roosevelt; Judge Macon Bolling Allen (1816-1894), one of the first Black attorneys to practice in the United States; and William (1823-1900) and Ellen Craft (1826-1891), authors of Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, an 1860 book chronicling their renowned escape from slavery.[15]
Christian Benevolent Society
Founded in 1839 by prominent free men of color, the Christian Benevolent Society purchased land for a cemetery on Pershing Street in 1856 (see #7 on map).[16] Few headstones are still visible today.
Unity & Friendship Society
Founded in 1844 by freemen of color, the Unity and Friendship Society established its cemetery on the corner of Cunnington and Huguenin Avenues in 1856 (see #8 on map).[17] Prominent figures interred in this cemetery include politician Alonzo Ransier (1834-1882) and African American historic preservation contractors and craftsmen, Thomas Mayhem Pinckney (1877-1952), Benjamin Rhodes DeCosta (1867-1911), Herbert A. DeCosta Sr. (1894-1960) and Herbert A. DeCosta Jr. (1923-2008).
Alonzo Ransier, born into freedom in Charleston, became the first Black lieutenant governor in South Carolina in 1870 and gained a reputation as a champion of equal rights.[18] He also served as a Congressman for South Carolina from 1873-1875.[19]
Thomas Mayhem Pinckney specialized in the restoration of historic structures and was highly skilled in hand-carved woodworking. Pinckney worked on numerous historic rehabilitation projects with Preservation Society founder Susan Pringle Frost, who called his craftsmanship “lasting monuments to his genius and his love of our old city.”[20]
The DeCosta family construction business was founded in 1899 by Benjamin Rhodes DeCosta, and for three generations, this company played an integral role in the local construction industry and historic preservation efforts. After almost a century of operation, the company was named one of the top 100 African-American-owned businesses in the nation in 1979. Third generation business owner Herbert A. DeCosta Jr. was also known for his civic involvement and dedication to improving the lives of African American Charlestonians.
Humane & Friendly Society
Founded in 1802, the Humane & Friendly Society established their cemetery on Cunnington Avenue in 1856 (see #9 on map).[21] Under its original auspices as the Humane Brotherhood Society, which was formed for darker-skinned freedmen excluded from the Brown Fellowship Society, the Society operated MachPelah Cemetery (named after the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the Old Testament) on Pitt Street, which was adjacent to Brown Fellowship Society Cemetery.[22] MacPhelah Cemetery was sold to the Catholic Diocese in 1957.[23] Along with the Brown Fellowship Cemetery, it eventually became part of the present-day Addlestone Library property, where burials remain.[24] The Cunnington Avenue cemetery notably contains the graves of Reverend Daniel Jenkins (1862-1937), Dr. Alonzo C. McClennan (1855-1912), J. Arthur Brown (1914-1988), and Lieutenant Stephen Swails (1832-1900).[25]
Daniel Jenkins, a Baptist minister, founded the Jenkins Orphanage for Black children in the 1890s, now known as the Jenkins Institute for Children.[26] The orphanage was made famous by its jazz band that toured the country through the 1930s.[27]
Physician Alonzo McClennan founded a hospital and nursing school for African Americans on Cannon Street in 1897.[28] Though the Cannon Street Hospital was meant to predominantly treat the underserved Black population of Charleston, they also treated some White patients and received referrals from White doctors. In 1956, Cannon Street Hospital was replaced by McClennan-Banks Memorial Hospital in honor of McClennan and the hospital’s first head nurse, Anna DeCosta Banks.[29]
J. Arthur Brown became president of the Charleston chapter of the NAACP in 1955, and of the South Carolina Conference in 1960.[30] Brown worked on many projects involving desegregation and civil rights activism, and co-founded the Committee on Better Racial Assurance, a local human services agency that works to improve race relations.[31]
Lieutenant Stephen Swails was a member of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, and became the first African American soldier to be promoted to the position of officer during the Civil War.[32] After the war, he served in the South Carolina state senate, and survived an assassination attempt by a White mob.[33]
Lewis Christian Union
Founded as a “Colored” cemetery in 1879, Lewis Christian Union purchased burial grounds from the Friendly Union Society that same year (see #12 on map).[34] The land eventually reverted back to the Friendly Union Society, who still owns it today, and Lewis Christian Union has ceased operation.[35] Lydia Bonneau (1876-1891) was buried in this cemetery after her death in a nationally publicized accident, wherein a flywheel from the nearby gas and electric company exploded and partially destroyed her home.[36]
Lacking active membership, Lewis Christian Union Cemetery was overrun by vegetative growth and nearly unrecognizable by 2012, when the Preservation Society of Charleston led a volunteer clean-up day as a first step toward the restoration and long-term maintenance of the cemetery. Overgrowth and trash were removed, damaged headstones were repaired and, today, the Preservation Society continues to support stewardship of this historic burial site.
Reserved Fellowship Society
Founded in 1881, the Reserved Fellowship Society established its cemetery on the corner of Lemon Street and Huguenin Avenue in 1884 (see #13 on map).[37] Captain Robert Magwood (1876-1956), originator of the Magwood fishing dynasty of Mount Pleasant, was buried here.[38]
[1] Robert L. Harris, “Charleston’s Free Afro-American Elite: The Brown Fellowship Society and the Humane Brotherhood,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 82, no. 4 (1981).
[2] Robert L. Harris, “The Brown Fellowship Society and the Humane Brotherhood”; J. H. Holloway, “Cemetery Fundraising Circular,” Circular, August 10, 1911, Holloway Family Collection, Avery Research Center.
[3] Robert L. Harris, “The Brown Fellowship Society and the Humane Brotherhood”; Bernard E. Powers, Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885 (Fayetteville, UNITED STATES: University of Arkansas Press, 1999).
[4] Timothy John Hyder, “Charleston’s Magnolia Umbra Cemetery District: A Necrogeographic History” (University of South Carolina, 2014).
[5] Timothy John Hyder, “Charleston’s Magnolia Umbra Cemetery District: A Necrogeographic History.”
[6] Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Charleston County, SC: United States Department of the Interior, 2017).
[7] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice, (Columbia, SC: Chicora Foundation, Inc, 2010).
[8] Kimberly Martin, “Community and Place: A Study of Four African American Benevolent Societies and Their Cemeteries” (Clemson University, 2010).
[9] Robert Behre, “Behre: Preventing Charleston’s Historic Cemeteries from Becoming Graveyards,” Post and Courier (Charleston, SC, February 13, 2021), https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/behre-preventing-charlestons-historic-cemeteries-from-becoming-graveyards/article_b4318746-6662-11eb-8fce-03d8af9fd442.html.
[10] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice.
[11] “De Large, Robert Carlos,” United States House of Representatives History, Art & Archives, https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/D/DE-LARGE,-Robert-Carlos-(D000208)/.
[12] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice.
[13] William C. Hine, “Miller, Thomas Ezekial,” South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina Institute for Southern Studies, June 8, 2016, https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/miller-thomas-ezekial/.
[14] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice; Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Charleston County, SC: United States Department of the Interior, 2017), 28.
[15] Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form; Daniel Hinchen, “Passing the Bar: America’s First African-American Attorney | Beehive,” The Beehive, Massachusetts Historical Society, 2019, http://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2019/05/passing-the-bar-americans-first-african-american-attorney/.
[16] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice.
[17] Ibid; Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.
[18] “Ransier, Alonzo Jacob,” United States House of Representative History, Art & Archives, https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/R/RANSIER,-Alonzo-Jacob-(R000060)/.
[19] “Ransier, Alonzo Jacob,” United States House of Representative History, Art & Archives.
[20] Frost, Susan P. “Pioneer in Preserving.” Charleston, SC: The News and Courier, July 24, 1947.
[21] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice; Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.
[22] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form; Cassandra Williams Rush, “Lt. Stephen Atkins Swails,” Post and Courier (Charleston, February 7, 2017), https://www.postandcourier.com/kingstree/news/lt-stephen-atkins-swails/article_2c162071-3823-5b6f-9cd7-7240207f0b3e.html.
[26] James Hutchinson, “Our History,” Jenkins Institute, 2005, https://www.jenkinsinstitute.org/index.php/our-history.
[27] James Hutchinson, “Our History.”
[28] Susan Dick Hoffius and E. Brooke Fox, The Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2011).
[29] Susan Dick Hoffius and E. Brooke Fox, The Medical University of South Carolina.
[30] Inventory of the J. Arthur Brown Papers, Finding Aid (Charleston, SC: Avery Research Center, n.d.).
[31] Inventory of the J. Arthur Brown Papers, Finding Aid.
[32] Audie Cornish, “Black Civil-War Soldier Gets Overdue Honors,” NPR, 2006, https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6417951.
[33] Audie Cornish, “Black Civil-War Soldier Gets Overdue Honors,” NPR.
[34] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice.
[35] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice.
[36] Evan R. Thompson, “What Happens When Mother Nature Buries a Graveyard?” Charleston City Paper (Charleston, SC, October 2, 2013), https://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/story/undefined.
[37] Michael Trinkley, Debi Hacker, and Nicole Southerland, The Silence of the Dead: Giving Charleston Cemeteries a Voice; Charleston Cemeteries Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.
[38] Howard Woody, Thomas L. Johnson, and Tom Johnson, South Carolina Postcards: Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester Counties. (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1997).