Sons and Daughters of Harmony Cemetery
To honor the legacy of those buried at Harmony Cemetery
At Sons and Daughters of Harmony Cemetery, we’re using the high visibility of the Harmony Cemetery Monument and the names of the 37,000 heros of DC’s Liberation Community to change the way American History is taught and to motivate young people, especially African-Americans, to civic pride and patriotism on a national basis.
The descendent ancestral (having an ancestral link to the 37,000 buried in Columbia Harmony Cemetery between 1829-1959) and memorial (those who have adopted the cause of educating the public about a buried hero) members of our organization are committed to educating the public to the true role played by liberated Americans of African descent in the development of our Nation.
What We Do
“To aid each other in infirmity, sickness, disease, or accident, and to provide burial for them after death.” - 1825 motto of Columbian Harmony Society
Founded in 2020, Sons and Daughters of Harmony Cemetery has been working hard with the help of our members and volunteers to deliver restorative justice and if possible headstones to the families whose ancestors were members of the Columbian Harmony Society founded in 1824. Our work is dedicated to funding and delivering an honorable living memorial wall at the site where the headstones were dumped as rip rap in the 1960s, returning in tact head stones to a memorial park near the site where their bodies are interred and to inspire new generations of Virginia, DC and Maryland youth by the example of the lives of these heroic Liberation Community members in DC, many of whom made significant contributions to American life with import reaching to the present day. Get in touch to learn how you can make a difference at our Restorative Justice and Education Organization.
Our Causes
It Starts With the Will to Make a Difference
Building a Living Memorial Wall
One of the main reasons Sons and Daughters of Harmony Cemetery was founded in 2020 was to pursue restorative justice for the thousands of families whose headstones have been desecrated by building a living memorial wall in the Potomac River. We are in the process of building a wall with the thousands of now eroded unmarked headstones, behind which wildlife and beautiful environment protective shoreline vegetation will flourish. We hope you’ll help us continue this work. See how you can by contacting us below.
Promoting Education
One of our goals is to ensure that the most vulnerable and at-risk groups in the greater Washington, DC area are provided a steady diet of the inspiration from those for whom the streets and schools of the city have been named in honor of, and whose distinguished families continue their legacies today. With your generous volunteering efforts, you have the capacity to help us in our endeavour of educating our children about the great heroes of American history who lived in the very communities and streets they walk every day. Contact us to learn more.
Restoring Headstones
One of our main causes here at Sons and Daughters of Harmony Cemetery is Restoring the Headstones, now sixty years lost, back to a picturesque old growth forest grove within National Harmony Memorial Park where the bodies were reinterred in 1960. See how you can help by reading more or contacting one of our representatives.
Connecting Family
One of the main reasons Sons and Daughters of Harmony Cemetery was founded in 2020 was to bring together the families of the DC Liberation Community who came together from 1825-1959 to support one another in life and death to found the Columbia Harmony Society. We want to help provide closure to what happened to your loved ones headstones. More importantly, we hope to inspire one another to build living foundations to share the legacy and leadership of our heroic ancestors with future generations to complete their great work. We hope you’ll help us continue this work. See how you can by contacting us below.
Support Project Harmony Gravestone Restoration
Nettie Washington Douglass
Born in the town of Tuskegee, Alabama, at the historic Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), Ms. Douglass has the unique distinction of being “heir of two great Americans.” She is the first person to unite the two bloodlines of Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass through the union of her mother, Nettie Hancock Washington (granddaughter of Booker T. Washington), and her father, Dr. Frederick Douglass III (great-grandson of Frederick Douglass).
Ms. Douglass began representing one or both of her famous ancestors at special events when she was just a little girl. She presented the first 1950 San Francisco minted Booker T. Washington Commemorative Half Dollar to Joe DiMaggio; speaking at the New York State Sesquicentennial (150th) Anniversary Celebration in 1977 (where she received a citation naming her Ambassador of Goodwill); being commissioned a Kentucky Colonel; having a day named in her honor in Easton, MD; making her “acting” debut in Rochester, NY, and speaking at City Hall in Hamilton, Bermuda are just a few of Ms. Douglass’s numerous and varied appearances. On June 19, 2013, she also spoke at the dedication of the Frederick Douglass bronze statue at Washington DC’s Capitol Visitors Center in Emancipation Hall. She was in the company of her son, Kenneth, and America’s top leaders.
While Ms. Douglass gets tremendous pleasure from her “living history,” presentations to students throughout the country are profoundly fulfilling. Still vivid in her memory is what she describes as her most heartwarming experience to date. She accepted the challenge to assist in the fundraising efforts of the award-winning Frederick Douglass High School Marching Band of Atlanta, Georgia. Ms. Douglass’s commitment to these students proved to be successful, thus allowing them to accept the invitation of Bermuda officials to perform in the Bermuda Day Parade. The Frederick Douglass High School Marching Band has the distinction of being the first “off island” band to be invited to perform in Bermuda’s second-largest holiday celebration. “Witnessing an entire country embrace ninety-six students from an inner-city school is an experience I will treasure always.”
Ms. Douglass served as the national spokesperson for the “African-American Heritage Check Series.” She was instrumental in successfully introducing the check series to the Riggs National Bank of Washington (DC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture Credit Union and the Bank South Corporation of Georgia, now known as Bank of America. In recognition of this celebrated endeavor, Ms. Douglass was given a “key to the city” of Memphis, Tennessee, by its mayor and a citation from the mayor of Washington, DC.
Ms. Douglass considers her greatest honor to be the publishing of one of her speeches along with the most noted speeches of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington: “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” and the “Atlanta Cotton Exposition” speech, respectively. The speeches were featured in “Vital Issues – The Journal of African American Speeches.” Ms. Douglass is a past volunteer for the United Negro College Fund (founded by Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, the third President of Tuskegee Institute) and the Georgia State Games. She served on the Board of Directors for the Friends of Frederick Douglass Museum in Washington, DC and also serves on the Board of Directors for Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives.
While her life is decorated with honors, the best part has been raising her family. Her children are Kenneth B. Morris, Jr, Nettie Douglass Morris and Douglass Washington Morris.
“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”
Carter G. Woodson
Contact Us
7101 Sheriff Rd
Hyattsville, Prince George's County 20785
USA
Become a Member
A Partnership to educate America about those who were buried at Columbia Harmony Cemetery
Was my Ancestor buried at Columbia Harmony Cemetery?
Throughout the years over 37,000 souls were buried at Columbia Harmony Cemetery.
The Columbian Harmony Society was a mutual aid society formed on November 25, 1825, by Americans of African Descent to aid one another. On April 7, 1828, it established the "Harmoneon," a cemetery exclusively for members of the society. This was a 1.3 acres cemetery bounded by 5th Street NW, 6th Street NW, S Street NW, and Boundary Street NW. Burials began in 1829.
As Harmoneon quickly filled, the society was forced to find new burial grounds. It acquired on July 1, 1857, a 17 acres tract bounded by Rhode Island Avenue NE, Brentwood Road NE, T Street NE, and the railroad tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Transferral of graves was completed in 1859. An 18 acres tract adjacent to the Columbian Harmony Cemetery was purchased in the summer of 1886. From the early 1880s to the 1920s, Columbian Harmony Cemetery was one of the most active cemeteries in Washington, with 21.8 percent of all American of African Descent burials occurring there.
Check if your ancestor was one of them, or review the list of Liberation Community heroes and heroines buried there and consider becoming a memorial member.
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/104436/columbian-harmony-cemetery-(defunct)
Descendent Member
For those who have a documented ancestor in the cemetery prior to 1960, this is a great way to expand your efforts to educate the public about their heroism. Your support can be an annual $50 contribution towards the friends of Harmony educating the public about your ancestor, or an in-kind donation of you or your family informing us of one educational activity taken during the year to share your ancestor’s story with the public. Contact us today to learn what becoming a member really means. We can guarantee the citizens of America will be forever grateful.
Memorial Membership
For those who wish to honor an individual documented to be. buried in the cemetery prior to 1960, this is a great way to expand your efforts to educate the public about their heroism. Your support can be an annual $50 contribution towards the friends of Harmony educating the public about your honoree, or an in-kind donation of you or your family informing us of one educational activity taken during the year to share your honoree’s story with the public. Contact us today to learn what becoming a member really means. We can guarantee the citizens of America will be forever grateful.
Support Project Harmony
Project Harmony is organized by HASAN (History Arts Science Action Network), a restorative justice non-profit of interdisciplinary scholars working together to explore and document cultural injustices, and restore justice through repatriation and education.
HASAN’S MISSION
Through bridging the arts, humanities, and science, HASAN aims to provide a highly interdisciplinary approach to exploration and preservation of cultural heritage throughout the world.
HASAN’S VISION
Our work documents and preserves history and cultures through bridging STEM and the ARTS to intact restorative justice across the globe.
LEARN MORE
http://www.hasanworldwide.org/
