New Hope Cemetery

New Hope Cemetery. Perry County. , The Phillip Henry Pitts family established the New Hope/Pitts Cemetery at their Rurrill Hill Plantation, located southeast of Uniontown, as a burial ground for their slaves. The first graves were on Pitts property adjacent to the Pitts family burials. According to Pitts family papers, the cemetery has existed since before the Civil War. After Emancipation, the Pitts family donated a plot of land to the freedmen to establish the New Hope Church, with the New Hope Cemetery adjacent to the church. The church structure has since been demolished, but the cemetery continued to function as a burial ground for the community and members of New Hope Church. As with many African American cemeteries before and after the Civil War, the cemetery was not delineated by a deed. Instead, the owners designated a section of their land for African American burials. The oldest known African American burial is that of Emma Green, born c. 1860 and died June 13, 1915. The most recent and perhaps last African American burial is that of Flora Pitts, born July 3, 1920, and died February 1990. Graves number between 80 and 100. Some graves are marked with headstones, while others are evidenced only by depressions in the soil., Listed in the Alabama Cemetery Register on December 31, 2019.