In cooperation with the Okefenokee Heritage Center, the Red Hill Cemetery Project seeks to document the oldest African American Cemetery in Waycross, Georgia. Over the last half century, the site has suffered from neglect, intentional vandalism, and aborted efforts at redevelopment, leaving the nearly six-acre parcel overgrown with brush and pines and marked by open graves and toppled monuments.
With as many as 2,000 burials, some of them dating from the 1800s, the cemetery, even in its current condition, memorializes the lives and struggles of an African American community during a period of monumental political, social, and cultural change.
By mapping and recording graves, developing a database of names and dates, and conducting oral histories of surviving family members, the Red Hill Cemetery Project will record often-neglected voices before they fall irretrievably silent.
