Greenwood Cemetery (Nashville, Tennessee)

History

The cemetery was founded by local pastor and businessman Preston Taylor in 1888. Taylor had been born a slave in Louisiana in 1849. He settled in Nashville in 1884, where he became a well known minister and businessman. In 1887 he conceived the idea of establishing a cemetery for African Americans on 37 acres (15 ha) of land near Buttermilk Ridge at Elm Hill Road. He purchased the land in 1887 for $30,000, and in 1888 he established Greenwood Cemetery. Its purpose was to provide low cost, first class burial plots for African-American residents of Nashville.

Concurrently he established a mortuary, Taylor Funeral Company, at 449 North Cherry Street, now Fourth Avenue (not related to today's Taylor Funeral Home of Nashville). Taylor operated the cemetery himself until his death in 1931, bequeathing it to the National Christian Missionary Convention of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The cemetery remains a nonprofit organization.

(Taylor also established Greenwood Park, the first park in Nashville open to African-Americans, in 1904.)