Local nonprofit details decade-long effort to restore East Knoxville African American cemeteries

Knox Reanimation Coalition leaders told the African American Equity Restoration Task Force they have spent more than a decade restoring historic African American burial sites in East Knoxville and need ongoing funding and local volunteers to continue the work. The coalition, represented at the July meeting by George Kemp, president, and board member Andre Canty, described three main initiatives: restoration work at the Odd Fellows (Odd Fellows) Cemetery on Bethel Avenue, work at Citizen (sometimes called Good Citizen or East Fort) Cemetery, and the Iffel Scholars education program that teaches writing, research and digital storytelling to middle and high school students. The work matters because the cemeteries hold unmarked graves and the remains of notable local figures, and fallen headstones accelerate erasure of those interred. "Once a headstone has fallen, the erasure of the person begins unless the headstone is upright," Kemp said. He told the task force that Odd Fellows covers about six acres and is believed to be the final resting place of roughly 6,000 African American citizens; the coalition currently finds fewer than 500 standing headstones there. Kemp described community-driven land-art projects, a "Community Pause" memorial and a program that wraps and decomposes selected tree limbs into painted discs to honor the cut material. He said the group formed as a nonprofit in 2009 after local residents and University of Tennessee staff advised founders Steven Scruggs and Clyde Dorsey on next steps. Canty framed the coalition’s mission as building generational wealth by preserving and sharing history. He highlighted the Iffel Scholars program that began with a small cohort in 2010 and has produced student publications and a student film that later won the Knoxville Film Festival high-school division. Coalition leaders said their work is volunteer-run, and they reported volunteer engagement figures: since February 2009 they have had roughly 4,851 volunteers donate about 14,070 hours. Kemp asked the task force to share grant-cycle information; task force staff said their next grant cycle opens in November. The presentation included a mix of historical detail and operational needs: which headstones the coalition hopes to upright, the volunteer labor involved, and the group's reliance on donations and grants. No formal action or funding award was taken during the meeting; coalition representatives were given information about the task force’s grant cycle and offered to follow up on potential applications. Task force members thanked the coalition and encouraged continued community involvement and youth engagement as part of preservation work.