College Memorial Park Cemetery

The neglect on this plaque cost the burial ground half its land. The Cultural Landscape Foundation records that the cemetery once covered more than ten acres; property disputes, city utility encroachment and sales to developers cut it to nearly five along West Dallas Street. Most of its more than 4,000 graves date from 1900 to 1940. The main path was first paved with crushed seashells, after a West African custom of placing water-related objects near graves, and today's shell walk follows the 1896 plat. Bethel Missionary Baptist Church acquired the cemetery in 1998 and began its revival.

What the plaque says

College Memorial Park Cemetery Founded in 1896, College Memorial Park Cemetery is one of Houston's three oldest African-American graveyards, along with Olivewood and Evergreen. The earliest legible grave marker dates to 1900, but with many unmarked graves and unreadable stones, it is likely that earlier burials exist. College Memorial Park Cemetery takes its name from its location opposite the Houston College. Its proximity to the Fourth Ward neighborhood, which saw an influx of African-American migration and the establishment of a freedmen's town after the Civil War, made this the primary burial ground for many religious, civic, education and business leaders of that community. Among those buried here are: John Henry (Jack) Yates, a vital community leader, first pastor of Antioch Baptist Church and founder of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, who encouraged property ownership among black Houstonians; Fort Worth and Houston educator J. M. Terrell, who became principal of Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, president of Houston College and administrator of the Houston Negro Hospital; veterans of both world wars; and participants in the racial conflict now known as the Houston riot of 1917. Jack Yates (d. 1897) originally was buried in Olivewood cemetery, but was reinterred here after College Memorial Park Cemetery became operable. Over the years, the burial ground has suffered from neglect and vandalism. Late 20th-century revitalization efforts sought to offset the earlier damage and to bring awareness to the cemetery as an important part of Houston's culture and heritage. (2002)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Menil Collection — 1.4 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 1.5 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 2.0 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 2.2 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• St. Thomas High School — 0.4 mi
• Bayou Bend — 0.9 mi
• J. Robert Neal Estate Garden — 0.9 mi
• Brown Chapel A. M. E. Church — 1.2 mi