Charles S. Vaughan, left, and Eddie Radden Jr. view improvements at the historically black Mount Olivet Cemetery in South Side for which they have lobbied City Hall for several years.
“It’s looking much better,” Mr. Vaughan said last Saturday in praising the city cemetery management for pruning bushes, trimming trees, removing grass covering name plates and tidying the burial ground.
Mount Olivet Cemetery, located off Hopkins Road, dates to 1874 and is part of the larger, historically white Maury Cemetery that the city also owns.
The two retirees are regular visitors to Mount Olivet, the final resting place of some of the most prominent African-Americans in South Side. Here, they pause in front of the grave of the Rev. Anthony Binga Jr., a top South Side educator of black children, a celebrated pastor for 47 years of First Baptist Church of South Richmond and a leader in national black Baptist groups before his death in 1919.
