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Memorial Service to Honor United States Civil War Colored Troops Soldier Charles Graves
May 16 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am
A memorial service and headstone installation ceremony honoring Civil War soldier Charles Graves, who served as a Sergeant in 65 H and 67 C United States Colored Troops, will take place on Saturday, May 16 at 10 a.m. at Maple Hill Cemetery, 2301 S. 34th St., Kansas City, Kansas 66106.
Graves, whose burial site was unmarked for over a century, is one of over 8,000 enlisted Missouri African Americans who served in infantry, cavalry and artillery units during the civil war. His service is representative of the nearly 3,000 enlistees who make up the archive of the Salus Populi Pension Project. This digital humanities project is actively creating an online digital archive for the pension records of free and formerly enslaved individuals from Clay, Chariton, Calloway, Boone, Lafayette, Howard and Saline Counties in Missouri.
Graves’ place of burial was discovered using these pension records which contain a wealth of documentation. The ceremony will reflect a broader effort to restore visibility to African American veterans whose stories have too often been overlooked, and whose final resting places are often unmarked and unknown to their own families and communities.
Multiple generations of Graves’ descendants will be in attendance and participating in the memorial service. The public is invited to attend. The ceremony will include brief remarks and an opportunity for the public to pay respects.
This event is organized by the Salus Populi Pension Project and funded in part through a partnership with the Kansas City Monuments Coalition. The Kansas City Monuments Coalition, funded by the Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Projects, is aimed at transforming the nation’s commemorative landscape to ensure our collective histories are more completely and accurately represented.