Baltimore's oldest black cemetery finally restored, with help of inmates

(Baltimore Sun) ... Founded in 1872, when blacks could not be interred next to whites, Mount Auburn was known as "The City of the Dead for Colored People." The cemetery, which overlooks the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, became the final resting place for many pioneers of Baltimore's black community.

They include Lillie May Carroll Jackson, who led the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP for 35 years; Carl J. Murphy, a leading voice of the civil rights movement, and his father, John Henry Murphy, the founder of the Afro-American newspaper; and Joseph Gans, the first lightweight boxing champion.

"Successive generations of colored people around the Baltimore area have been buried at this site," said the Rev. Douglas B. Sands Sr., an area pastor who was been involved with efforts to restore the cemetery. Continued