Mount Zion Cemetery, African American cemetery in Georgetown, United States
Mount Zion Cemetery is an African American burial ground in Georgetown, Washington D.C., made up of two side-by-side plots along 27th Street and Mill Road. The grounds hold simple marble headstones placed over underground brick vaults that have been in use for more than two centuries.
The burial ground opened in 1808 as a Methodist cemetery used by both white and Black people in Georgetown. After 1849, it became a place used mainly by the Black community as the needs of the neighborhood shifted.
The cemetery sits in Georgetown and was long the only place where Black Washingtonians could bury their dead with dignity. Visitors still come today to leave flowers and pay respects at the graves of people who shaped the early Black community here.
The cemetery is in Georgetown and easy to reach on foot from the surrounding streets. Information panels on site give an overview of the history, making a short visit worthwhile even without a guide.
The western section of the grounds was bought in 1842 by the Female Union Band Society, a group of freed Black women who organized to create a burial place that belonged to their own community. They acted on their own initiative at a time when taking such a step was far from straightforward.
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