Stories of Relocated Cemeteries in the United States of America

South Carolina

Charleston News and Courier (Charleston, SC) reported on Jan 18,1969 that 45 feet of the historic Quaker Cemetery at King and Queen streets was cleared in preparation for the removal of an undetermined number of graves. They felt it necessary to desecrate a burial ground to build a Million dollar high-rise parking garage. South Carolina

"We Just Don't Trust Our Memories to Stone"

A remapping of flooded black cemeteries in the Santee-Cooper Basin

This project reexamines the legacy of the Santee-Cooper Basin by centering the cemeteries and sacred landscapes of Black South Carolinians that were disrupted or erased. While the project has often been framed as a success story, its creation led to the flooding or relocation of more than 150 cemeteries across Berkeley, Orangeburg, and Clarendon counties—disturbing over 9,000 graves, most belonging to enslaved Africans and their descendants. Drawing on cemetery records, land maps, and archival materials, this work retraces the inundation of Goshen Plantation Cemetery, remaps over 30 submerged Black cemeteries, and reclaims knowledge of swamps, springs, and other spiritually significant sites. In doing so, it gestures toward the recovery of Conjure knowledge systems and the cultural memory embedded in these landscapes.

Explore the full project here: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/26a0738840b6478da142655a72e4b894