Holt Cemetery

Holt Cemetery has been seen by some artists and scholars as representative of spiritual traditions with a long history in the African-American community. Practices visible there include spreading broken crockery over graves, adorning graves with seashells and white gravel, placing objects used by the deceased on graves, planting trees on graves, and using inverted vessels and reflective materials as markers. Art historian Robert Farris Thompson suggested that such ways of marking graves can be traced to cultures of West and Central Africa, and many of these practices are widespread in cemeteries throughout the Atlantic world. Contemporary scholars have increasingly focused on how grave markings are understood by their creators, yet despite much speculation about burial practices at Holt, there has been little formal study of the space. Above all, Holt Cemetery is a place of rest for thousands of people and a place of emotional and spiritual significance for many more, and it has evolved and changed several times in its history. In these spiritual traditions, water often represents the boundary between the world of the living and the afterlife, so pipes may help establish connections between the two, while trees planted on graves function similarly and also symbolize rebirth.

New Orleans, Louisiana · United States