BY SHELLIE TAYLOR

For over 40 years, some people in Statesville believed that an abandoned African American church cemetery had been destroyed by the organization known as the Statesville Redevelopment Commission, which later became known as the Statesville Housing Authority.

In 2010, the Statesville Record & Landmark published a story in which residents claimed that the site had been bulldozed to make way for the houses that are now on Adams Street and East Raleigh Avenue, just south of Statesville.

My initial thought was, “There is no way. I cannot believe that an entire cemetery would be wiped away by a housing development.”

But then again, this practice has been documented across the country, especially with cemeteries of marginalized communities like African American and Native American populations.

I started walking the property owned and managed by the Statesville Housing Authority. We had been talking with several different people, including some who lived in the community, some who grew up there, some remembered when the church was there, and others who remembered seeing the cemetery and swore it was still there. One account inspired us to walk along the railroad tracks searching the tree line while wondering if the houses on Adams Street were built over top of it. Another report claimed that the cemetery was actually behind the first cluster of houses on Raleigh Avenue. Someone else said they thought it was along the railroad tracks but closer to Garner Bagnal Boulevard.

Every time I went out searching, I made my step goal for the day. We walked over what felt like was every inch of SHA property. Then I got to thinking, “Well, surely if it was not destroyed, we would have found it by now!”

We finally went out to visit the site with people who knew where it was, and I am thrilled beyond belief to announce that it was not destroyed. It is still there! The people buried there are not my ancestors, but I got a little emotional standing in the place for the first time. I felt like I had found long-lost friends. These people had been mostly forgotten, and those who remembered them thought their final resting place had been desecrated. They are forgotten no longer.

The history of the Stearn’s Temple goes back to the 1920s when C.A. Stearns, a major developer in town, recruited African American laborers from Georgia to come to Statesville to work for him. Georgia communities had been devastated by the boll weevil invasion. As a result, crops had been destroyed and many working opportunities dried up. Eager to earn a living, they migrated to Statesville to work for C.A. Stearns, whose name would grace the building that housed the Playhouse Theatre.

Prior to this group’s arrival in Statesville, Iredell County only had five African Americans who were born in Georgia living here, according to the 1920 census. By the 1930 census, almost 250 Georgia-born African Americans lived in the county. That’s quite an increase. Unfortunately, these newcomers were not always welcomed in Statesville. They were often viewed as outsiders. They were looked down upon for “not being from here,” or for taking jobs away from native Statesville residents. An already marginalized community became even more isolated and built their own community, which included their own church. Stearn’s Temple was a Colored Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) church. Prior to the arrival of this group from Georgia, there was not a C.M.E. church in the county. If the term “C.M.E.” rings a bell, it’s probably because you are thinking of Holsey Memorial C.M.E. Church, which is located off South Mulberry Street. They are the same congregation. Stearn’s Temple adopted the name Holsey Memorial as early as 1930 when the church building was located on Washington Avenue (across from the current location of Purple Heart Homes). We know this because the site is labeled in the 1930 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.

In 1924, Stearns gave land to the church congregation so they could build a structure and a cemetery. The plat map for this transaction is still available, and you can see where the plans included a portion for a burial ground. According to the plat map, several roads can be seen and many of them still exist, although the layout of the area has changed a great deal. Winston and Durham at one point crossed what is now Shelton Avenue and made its way through this community. Washington Avenue came all the way south until the creation of US 70/Garner Bagnal. The first burial that we know of took place in 1925 for an infant named Willie Hazel McWhorter.

Sometime between 1924 and 1930, the church relocated to the Washington Avenue address, and it stayed there for a long time until the congregation purchased the current building on South Mulberry Street. Even though the church had moved, burials still continued in the cemetery. The last documented burial we know of was in 1948 for a woman named Sallie Loftin, who died in a fire at her home.

According to death certificates and newspaper death announcements, there are a confirmed 81 people buried at this site, all of whom have been added to the cemetery’s listing on Find A Grave.

Finding this cemetery was such a collective effort and I cannot thank the community residents enough for speaking with us at the library during our attempts to locate this historical site. There are no current plans to restore the area; however, the Statesville Housing Authority has allowed us to continue looking for graves. As a primarily federally funded entity, the SHA will not be able to pay for any restoration work at this site. SHA officials are amenable to erecting a sign with the names of those buried there, and they also said they would support a nonprofit organization if they were able to receive grant funds to help restore the site. This is progress and definitely an upgrade from the rumors of the last 40 years.

Finding this site has been such an uplifting and positive experience. I am truly excited to see what the future holds for this site and to see how the community can move forward knowing that it was not destroyed. More importantly, the stories of those buried here are finally being tolld. As I always say, every burial is a story.

Shellie Taylor is the Local History Program Specialist at the Iredell County Public Library. She can be contacted at michelle.taylor@iredellcountync.gov or 704-878-3090, Ext. 8801.