In 1959, Washington D.C.’s Columbian Harmony Cemetery—once the city’s most prominent burial ground for African Americans—was sold and dismantled.
Although the remains of over 37,000 individuals were relocated to the newly established National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover, Maryland, their headstones, monuments, and grave markers were not preserved. Instead, these sacred markers were discarded—used as makeshift riprap along the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia, stripped of their dignity and historical significance.
Today, Project Harmony is working to reclaim that legacy.
Led by the History, Arts & Science Action Network 501(c)3 team, in close collaboration with the descendant community and the Commonwealth of Virginia, the project has recovered 158 headstones. Each legible stone retrieved from the river is being transported to National Harmony Memorial Park, where they will be respectfully incorporated into a memorial wall and footpath—ensuring that the memory of those interred is honored with permanence and reverence.