Efforts continue to preserve abandoned, historic West View cemeteries

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The Knoxville community of West View may seem less suspecting from a bird’s eye view, but it’s home to the largest African American burial site in the county. A passerby might not give a second glance to any of the three abandoned cemeteries, but they contain individuals whose impact the community and Knox Heritage are working to honor and preserve.

The West View Cemetery District is located off of Keith Avenue and is made up of three cemeteries:  Southern Chain Cemetery which was established in 1898, Longview Cemetery, which was established in 1915, and Crestview Cemetery, which was established in 1922.

The cemetery district has been on Knox Heritage’s “Fragile & Fading” list multiple times. Knox Heritage stated that there are an estimated 15,000 burials between the three cemeteries, but there may be more unrecorded burials.

During the 1960s, the cemeteries were owned by Crestview Cemetery, Inc., but by 1984, they were abandoned, overgrown and had become an illegal dumping ground.

In 1993, the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance acquired Crestview Cemetery through legal action, but Christine Cloninger, Executive Director of Knox Heritage shared that the Southern Chain Cemetery and Longview Cemetery are both abandoned and do not have legal owners.

For around 25 years, members of the West View Community Action Group used its limited resources to advocate and maintain the cemeteries through clean-ups and community activism, Cloninger explained. Eventually, the West View Community Action Group partnered with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office Corrections for maintenance on Crestview Cemetery, but that partnership ended when the pandemic began in 2020 , leaving the cemetery to become overgrown.

Since then, the sheriff’s office has not reinstated the work release program’s efforts at the cemetery, and Cloninger explained that the West View Community Action Group is no longer active.

A KCSO spokesperson explained that previously, there were more inmates in the work release program than what they currently have, and staffing to oversee those individuals has been a challenge. The majority of the 98 inmates who are assigned to work release duties are working to maintain multiple county facilities, kitchen and laundry duties, but the spokesperson added that if the numbers change, Sheriff Tom Spangler is willing to have the inmates assigned to work release take care of other community projects.

Knox Heritage explained in this year’s “Fragile & Fading” list that over the last few years, the involvement of local figures has shown a strong commitment to preserving the cemeteries, not just for historical reasons, but also as a way to honor and remember loved ones. One of those leaders is Denzel Grant, the founder and executive director of Turn Up Knox, a Knoxville nonprofit that works to interrupt cycles of gun violence.

“It’s encouraging to see that local citizens are rallying around this cause and working together to find solutions. These kinds of community-driven initiatives are vital for preserving local heritage and ensuring that important sites are maintained for future generations,” Knox Heritage’s “Fragile & Fading” list reads in part.

In 2022, WATE’s Veronica Ogbe spoke with Grant, who had worked to clean up the Crestview Cemetery for an event about a week after Mother’s Day.

“The whole point in this was to find a long-term solution,” Grant told Ogbe. “Being able to come back and visit that loved one, it drives a person’s spirit. Not being able to do that for so long and finally being able to today, and hopefully here in the future, I think it’s a huge benefit to those individuals.”

In 2023, Knox Heritage noted that Grant and other citizens have worked diligently to find solutions. Notably, the organization said funds raised by the community and a matching contribution from a local church helped Turn Up Knox purchase lawn care equipment and necessities to keep up with the Crestview section of the district for a full calendar year.

Knox Heritage is advocating for the West View Cemetery District to be given Historic Overlay zoning to protect it from development. Some examples of development that could threaten the cemeteries if the zoning is not put in place are housing or commercial development and agricultural land clearing. For several years, those efforts also included partnering with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office Corrections to mow and maintain Crestview, however, the partnership ended due to the pandemic.

Cloninger shared with 6 News that the organization has spoken with Knoxville-Knox County Planning and they are in the early stages of the process to get that zoning, which would be reviewed by the Historic Zoning Commission and the Planning Commission before going to the City Council for approval.

Collinger also stated that William Bradley, a prominent and respected member of Knoxville’s African American Community, William Lillison, an African American business leader and police officer, and Charles Cansler , a prominent and respected African American educator, civil rights advocate, attorney and author, are buried in the West View Cemetery District among educators, authors, doctors, musicians, lawyers, and business owners as well as many others whose graves were unmarked or whose memorials or headstones are missing or damaged.

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