Phase I of Mt. Olive Cemetery Complete

The historic Mount Olive Cemetery was supported by a Historically Black Colleges and Universities grant from the Historic Preservation Fund administered by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. These funds were secured in May 2020 by JSU’s Office of Community Engagement. The conservation of the gravemarkers and monuments at Mount Olive Cemetery took place during a four-week fieldwork session in May and June of 2023, and a six-week fieldwork session in October and November 2023. For this project, RGA served as the prime contractor, employed four local residents of Jackson, and provided them with hands-on training in gravestone and monument conservation.  Upon completion of the project, each conservation team member earned a certificate of achievement for completing a program of historic cemetery preservation training at Mount Olive Cemetery.

Over ten weeks, the Mount Olive conservation team conserved about 177 gravemarkers and excavated and reset concrete and marble curbing for four family burial plots. During the project, the conservation team uncovered five gravemarkers that had not been documented in previous surveys of the cemetery or through research in newspapers and death certificates. These newly rediscovered gravemarkers mark the graves of for Albert Scott, Harriette Harvey, George Perkins, Dovie Shipp.

To view the complete report and see all the before and after photos, please check out the pdf here. 

During the project, students from Mississippi State University (MSU) visited the Mount Olive Cemetery to observe conservation techniques and learn about cemetery preservation. The students were part of a cohort participating in a three-year community field school supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities studying the African American Brush Arbor Cemetery on the campus of MSU in Starkville, Mississippi.  

Approximately 47 mausoleums within the cemetery will be conserved for Phase II  and will commence in 2025, which was recently funded by another grant from the National Park Service.

For more information about Mt. Olive please check out the website at https://www.jsums.edu/mtolive/ for contact Heather Denne’ at 601-979-5828 or by email at heather.a.denne@jsums.edu.