BNHA Mount Auburn Cemetery

Affiliations

Baltimore City Landmark

National Register of Historic Places

Interpretive Framework

Gaining Freedom for All: African American Heritage and the Struggle for Equality

Shaping a Monumental City: The City’s Growth in the 20th Century

Resource Type

Cemeteries

2614 Annapolis Rd

Baltimore, Maryland 21230

Baltimore’s Mount Auburn Cemetery is one of the first cemeteries owned and operated by African Americans. Established in 1872, the cemetery was originally known as the “City of the Dead for Colored People.” Former slaves who had found freedom through the Underground Railroad were among those buried there by Baltimore’s black families. For years it was the only burial ground for Baltimore African Americans.

Mount Auburn Cemetery is the final resting place of prominent civil rights activist Lillie Carroll Jackson; William Ashbie Hawkins, one of the first African American bishops in the African Methodist Church; and Joseph Gans, the first black lightweight boxing champion of the world. The cemetery is designated as a city landmark and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.