CHARLOTTE — The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Cemetery Foundation officially took ownership of the historic cemetery in Grier Heights Wednesday, marking a significant step in preserving Charlotte’s African American heritage.
The transfer of ownership from Thompson, a local nonprofit providing foster care and mental health services for children, was cemented at an event Wednesday morning.
In attendance was 72-year-old Wayne Johnson. He says he gets by spending time in the graveyard doing manual labor, but that’s nothing new.
“My cousin used to live right there where those apartments are at,” he told Channel 9’s Eli Brand. “We would always be at that house, and we would be here playing, so we would have to run through the cemetery.”
Johnson says he spent much of his childhood at the Grier Heights Cemetery. It’s one of the remnants of his home church, St. Lloyd Presbyterian, a Christian congregation established in 1868 following the liberation of African Americans. The church played a pivotal role in the community, and the cemetery serves as a testament to its historical significance.
“I was born in 1953, so I was going to church when I was a baby,” he said.
Their first church was in SouthPark and their second was there in southeast Charlotte in the Grier Heights neighborhood. Historical records with anecdotal evidence suggest the church was burned down.
Now it lives on through Wednesday’s change in ownership. The St. Lloyd Cemetery Foundation is working to restore the land, including the grave markers of their ancestors.
“My great grandfather, his name is Nelson Walker, I’ve been working on it since last Friday,” he said.
Johnson says he has been putting in work to honor his family.
“Today I’m standing on their shoulders because I’m a free man, and I have always been free,” Johnson said. “I could do what I wanted, and I was spoiled rotten.”
The plan is now to make the cemetery a park — one of remembrance for those who live here now to remember those who built the community they now call home.
VIDEO: ‘We had it all’: Descendants work to restore ancestral cemetery in Charlotte
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LH3JSJEF3VBLRJLJQESEAG34AM.png)
