Wake, a nonprofit organization which helps the community access affordable funeral and burial services, and Our Mammy’s, a historical research and genealogy service which provides community education about Black cemeteries, are teaming up on All Saints Day, Monday, November 1, to highlight conditions at Holt Cemetery.

Holt Cemetery, a city-owned graveyard,  was established in 1879 as a potter’s field, but transitioned to regular use in the 1960s. Since then it has been in constant use and reached capacity at some point in the mid 1980s. The cemetery is significant in New Orleans music history as the burial site of known and unknown early blues and jazz musicians including Babe Stovall, Jessie Hill and Charles “Buddy” Bolden.

A press release issued jointly by the two organizations states, “Since there were no other solutions for affordable burial in the metro area, the cemetery continued to be used until capacity reached crisis proportions, where it remains today.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, Holt received multiple burials per day, sometimes as many as 20. This crisis of capacity requires the reuse graves and every new burial in Holt Cemetery involves the exhumation of at least one person. Emily Ford, superintendent of cemeteries for the City of New Orleans, estimates that every square foot of Holt Cemetery has been used for several burials. “We receive at least a few calls per week from family members hoping to find a loved one, only to be told that it has been too long and the grave is occupied by someone new,” she said.

Despite this, families turn out in large numbers throughout the year to tend to the current graves of their loved ones. All Saints Day, a state holiday that draws families to burial grounds for the upkeep of tombs and graves, is a notable occasion for paying respect and bringing memorials to the deceased.

Gaynell Brady, owner and operator of Our Mammy’s History and Genealogy, has created educational materials and conducts outreach and community education about the history of Holt Cemetery. Through genealogic research of her own family, she learned that she has more than a dozen family members buried at Holt. “Holt is the resting place of thousands of African American people and continues to hold our community, despite overuse and underinvestment,” she said. “Holt families have managed to make it a monumental landscape to Black history and culture.”

Wake is a nonprofit that helps families connect to affordable funeral and burial services. “Affordable burial is a social justice issue in New Orleans” said Liz Dunnebacke, executive director of Wake. “Strong religious traditions and a robust burial and memorialization culture means that families need access to affordable space to bury their dead, and there is simply no more room.”

Ford agrees. “Holt unquestionably needs to close and new cemetery space opened to serve the community,” she said.

Gaynell, Dunnebacke and Ford will provide information about the conditions of Holt Cemetery, located at 527 City Park Avenue, from 1 – 2 p.m.