Locating Slavery's Legacies @ University of Virginia

Memorial Place

Space on Campus

Emancipationist

Enslaver

UVA Prominent Figures

UVA Cemetery; a historically white cemetery

The University of Virginia Cemetery, located at the intersection of McCormick and Alderman Roads 1/3 of a mile west of the Academical Village, has served as the final resting place for members of the University of Virginia community since 1828. Initially created during a typhoid outbreak, it became the burial site for faculty, administrators, and their families. In 1966, its eligibility requirements changed to include alumni. The cemetery from 1991 to 2003 added two columbarium walls along the north border. In 2016, it expanded to the south, adding new burial plots and nine new columbarium walls.

This walled cemetery space reflects UVA’s institutional history, containing the graves of notable professors, administrators, and their families. Generations of prominent professors were buried there. Among those interred prior to the 1970s are eugenicists, segregationists, pro-slavery ideologues, slaveowners, Confederate soldiers and officers, and promoters of Lost Cause mythology. Confederate service is noted on a number of tombstones.

Today, the cemetery remains in use and is open faculty, administrators, members of the Board of Visitors, alumni, and long-employed staff.

The University of Virginia Cemetery is a walled burial ground located at the intersection of Alderman Road and McCormick Road. It contains marked graves for faculty, administrators, alumni, and other university affiliates, including four UVA presidents. The site includes both historic headstones and modern columbarium walls.

The University Cemetery was not created by a single individual or commission. It originated as a burial ground for university faculty and their families starting in 1828. Today, it is managed by the University Cemetery Committee. Individuals and families purchase burial rights.

1828

1882

1913

1940

1990

2003

2016

1820-1865: Slavery, Anti-Slavery, and Civil War

1865-1890: Emancipation, Reconstruction and Resistance to Reconstruction

1890-1945: Era of the Lost Cause, Jim Crow legal segregation and discrimination, and organized anti-Black racism

1945-1976: Era of Civil Rights Movement and resistance to Civil Rights Movement

1976-2000: The Conservative Ascendancy and Retrenchment from Civil Rights Movement

Originally, burials and headstones were privately funded by individual families of UVA faculty and affiliates. Although the cemetery sits on university-owned land, it was never funded through centralized university allocations. Today, it is managed by a separate organization (Cemetery Committee) that oversees plot reservations and collects payments from individuals and families who purchase interment rights.

University of Virginia; Charlottesville, Virginia

University of Virginia Cemetery and Columbarium

University of Virginia Cemetery and Columbarium Homepage

UVA Cemetery Map

UVA Cemetery History