Lincoln Memorial Park
Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery is a historic African-American cemetery in the Brownsville neighborhood of Miami, Florida.History
Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery was first used as a graveyard in 1924 on land owned by a F.B. Miller. In 1937 the burial ground was purchased by Kelsey Pharr, who was a black funeral director. Mr. Pharr was a native of South Carolina, who had studied embalming in Boston and had moved to Miami in the early 1900s. After his death in 1964, the cemetery passed on to his goddaughter Elyn Johson, and then to Jessica Williams, the latter's niece.
The layout of the cemetery is of the above the ground burial style which is very popular in locations at or below sea level and are prone to flooding, just like Evergreen Memorial Park a few blocks away and the Charlotte Jane Memorial Park Cemetery in Coconut Grove..
Some of Miami's most noted African-Americans are buried in Lincoln Memorial Park:
- Kelsey Phar, first owner of the cemetery;
- H.E.S. Reeves, founder of the Miami Times, the county’s oldest Black-owned newspaper;
- Gwen Cherry, the first African-American woman to serve as a state legislator in Florida;
- Dana A. Dorsey, Miami’s first Black millionaire;
- Rev. John Culmer, rector of the Historical St. Agnes Episcopal Church in Overtown;
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