The Oak Grove-Freedman's Cemetery is a historic cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

 located at the corner of Liberty Street and North Church Street in downtown Salisbury, North Carolina

Salisbury, North Carolina

Salisbury is a city in Rowan County in North Carolina, a state of the United States of America. The population was 33,663 in the 2010 Census . It is the county seat of Rowan County...

. The cemetery has served as a burial ground for African Americans since it was deeded to the city in 1770. More than one hundred fifty known and unknown African Americans, both enslaved and free, are buried at the cemetery.

The Freedman cemetery is part of a larger cemetery parcel known now as the Old English Cemetery, which is home to the graves of soldiers who died in the Battle of Camden

Battle of Camden

The Battle of Camden was a major victory for the British in the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War...

 in 1780 and to British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 soldiers who died in Salisbury during Cornwallis’ occupation of the city. The two cemeteries were not separated physically until 1842 when a wooden fence was erected around the Old English Cemetery per the will of William Gay

William Gay

William H. Gay is a retired American football defensive end. He currently resides in Detroit, MI.-High school career:...

. This fence effectively separated the burial sites of African Americans and whites for the first time. In 1855, the fence was replaced with a granite wall, which remains standing today. Between 1903-1940, portions of the Freedman’s Cemetery have been violated causing bodies to disintegrate and markers to be removed. The last standing markers were noted in 1940. The City of Salisbury assumed ownership of the cemetery in 1975, at which time the cemetery was closed to future burials.

In 1998 the Waterworks Visual Arts Center, under the support of the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 and other local organizations, embarked on an eight year effort to restore parts of the cemetery and erect a public art memorial to honor the historic site. Artist Maggie Smith and landscape architect Sam Reynolds were hired to design and create the memorial which was dedicated on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 16, 2006. Maggie Smith said of the project that, “the restoration and memorialization of the Oak Grove-Freedman’s Cemetery has one primary goal: to symbolically and literally bring the desecrated part of the cemetery back into the community’s embrace.