Central State Hospital African-American Cemetery

ABOUT

Used from 1911 to 1937, the Central State Hospital African-American Cemetery (formerly known as the New Colored Cemetery) covers 5.15 acres of land and serves as the final resting place of approximately 1,200 to 1,500 graves. The site is heavily treed and is located on a sloped hillside with historic cast-iron metal grave markers dating between 1911 to 1937. Earlier graves are believed to have begun at the bottom of the hill on the northwest side with burials moving throughout the years from west to east up the hill. Due to the construction of Rivers Buildings, a tuberculosis hospital in 1940, an estimated 2,000 bodies were reinterred between 1938 and 1939 to trench graves in the nearby and newly formed South Camp Creek Cemetery. The-cast iron metal grave markers were also moved and replaced on each grave. The African-American Cemetery is significant to Milledgeville and Georgia’s black heritage and social history as it was specifically laid out for the burial of African-American patients. The cemetery reflects the segregation between races in the field of health and medicine and in funerary practices during America’s early 20th century. To gain access into the African-American cemetery, visitors may park at the Mary Brown Pavilion and enter behind the pavilion. Information courtesy of the CSH Annual Report, Georgia Archives, and the National Register of Historic Places.