Washington Park Cemetery

Washington Park Cemetery is a cemetery located in Berkeley, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1920 as an African-American cemetery, the cemetery is no longer commercially active, but has drawn attention for large-scale disinterment in the wake of construction and its long-term state of disrepair.
History.
Washington Park Cemetery was founded in 1920 by businessmen Andrew Henry Watson and Joseph John Hauer as a for-profit, perpetual-care burial site for African Americans, eventually becoming the largest African-American cemetery in the St. Louis region at the time. Whites opposed the construction of the cemetery and though Watson and Hauer were supportive of segregationist notions regarding land rights, equal interment, and use of public parks, they defended the rights of black visitors to picnic on the grounds. As a result, they were the subject of criticism for “disrupting bucolic country land with the presence of black St. Louisans.”
Beginning in the latter half of the century, the cemetery was impacted by three construction projects. In the late 1950s, 75 acres were claimed for Interstate 70, which bisected the cemetery's property and paved over graves. In 1972, an expansion to the St. Louis Lambert International Airport claimed nine acres. In 1992, an expansion to St. Louis's light rail system, MetroLink, claimed more land. Across these three projects, an estimated 11,974 to 13,600 bodies were disinterred and relocated, resulting in some families losing track of their ancestral graves.
The cemetery ceased business operations in 1980, but has since drawn the attention of activists and media for its management, disrepair, and for billboards placed in the cemetery's grounds. Those billboards have, as of August 2020, been removed from the cemetery after a lawsuit settlement between billboard company DDI Media and area resident Wanda Brandon's activist group, the Washington Park Cemetery Anti-Desecration League.
The city of Berkeley purchased the cemetery in 2019 for $30. Restoration efforts at the cemetery by various volunteer groups are ongoing. 