Calvary Cemetery was established as a burial ground for Norfolk’s African American citizens on January 9, 1877. Calvary is a 68-acre outdoor museum of African American history in Norfolk. For nearly a century, most of Norfolk’s African American citizens were interred at Calvary as there were no other burial options available to African Americans in Norfolk until the mid-1970s. Epitaphs document the lives of every level of African American society from doctors and lawyers, to sailors and laborers.
Today, Calvary serves as both a place of remembrance and a chronology of the many important contributions of Norfolk’s African American citizens to the history of our great City.
