08/25/2025
On the evening of Saturday, September 6th, join Historic Congressional Cemetery for a special screening of a powerful documentary, “If These Stones Could Talk." The film tells the remarkable story of headstones from Columbian Harmony Cemetery—a historic African American burial ground once located at 9th Street and Rhode Island Avenue NE—that were discovered decades later, discarded in the Potomac River. In 1960, the graves were relocated, and the Rhode Island Avenue–Brentwood Metro station now sits on the site. Through community voices, archival footage, and a fight for remembrance, the documentary follows the journey to restore dignity to those once forgotten.
At least one of Congressional Cemetery’s interred residents has a connection to the former Columbian Harmony Cemetery: Alain Locke, Rhodes scholar and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Locke died in 1954, and his ashes were stored in a paper bag for 60 years. Before choosing HCC for Locke’s much belated interment in 2014, the fellow Rhodes scholars who discovered his ashes sought to bury him with his mother, Mary Hawkins Locke. However, Mrs. Locke was buried at Columbian Harmony after her death in 1922. Because of the 1960 relocation, which was not done with fastidious detail, her precise place of rest today is unknown.
From the 2008 biography of Locke by Leonard Harris and Charles Molesworth: “[…] Mary Hawkins, a dedicated teacher, greatly valued the teacherly riches of both the paternal and maternal lineages that she and her son unceasingly took pride in, and she stressed that with such riches came the need for constant education and self-betterment. [...] In addition to their vocations as teachers, Locke’s parents took pride in being freeborn blacks as opposed to freed slaves. This pride was transmitted to their son as a sense of privilege, or at least a feeling that race and skin color were ultimately irrelevant, or should be, when set against one’s ability to learn and teach any manner of subject.”
For registration and more information on this free documentary showing, please click the Linktree link in our bio.
Photo: Mrs. Locke, from her death notice in "Crisis Magazine," April 1922.
