Supporters celebrate Zion Cemetery founder, re-dedication of main road

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Historic Zion Cemetery supporters gathered on Saturday at the South Parkway East site to celebrate the life of the cemetery's founder, Reverend Morris Henderson, and to re-dedicate the cemetery's newly restored main road, Zion Avenue.

Chair of Zion Community Project, Dr. Reginald Barnes Sr. presided over the dedication and commemoration.

Reverend Henderson, who was ordained as a minister in Memphis in 1864, was born a slave in Virginia.

Migrating to Memphis, he founded the historic Beale Street Baptist Church in 1865, considered "the Mother Church of Black Baptist churches" in Memphis.

He also led the United Sons of Zion, a fraternal organization in Memphis, to purchase a large plot of land on South Parkway establishing Zion Cemetery in 1876, the first Black cemetery in Memphis.

Reverend Henderson, who died in October of 1877, is buried in the cemetery.