Colored Asylum Cemetery, Columbia, South Carolina

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: cemeteries African-American

The Colored Asylum Cemetery, also known as Slighs Cemetery or Slighs Avenue Cemetery, is located in Columbia, South Carolina at 2091 Slighs Avenue.

The cemetery was established as a segregated burial ground exclusively for black patients from the now defunct State Hospital for the Mentally Ill.^[1] Graves were unmarked.

Though Columbia's city council voted in 2001 to preserve the cemetery and honor those buried there, today the James E. Clyburn Golf Center, supported by the city and a private foundation, is situated over the cemetery at Slighs Avenue. The city added netting and moved the tees back in order to protect the graves from golf balls.^[2][1]

Find a Grave's memorial page for the cemetery contains 4220 memorials, but news reports as well as the Historic Columbia website offer grave counts between 2000 and 3500. The Find a Grave page also contains one photograph of the site, taken in 2003, which shows the area of the graves marked by stakes.^[3][4]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "2091 Slighs Avenue," Historic Columbia, Web. (historiccolumbia.com, accessed 11 Feb 2023), link to page.
2. ↑ "Plan to catalog cemeteries urged," The State, 16 May 2001, p. B1, col. 4, Web, (newspapers.com, accessed 10 Feb 2023), Newspapers Clip: 118397205 part 1, Newspapers Clip: 118397298 part 2
3. ↑ 2003 image, added by stuthehistoryguy on 4 Jun 2003.
4. ↑ "Colored Asylum Cemetery," Find a Grave, Web. (findagrave.com, accessed 11 Feb 2023). link.

See also:

• "7 Midlands Cemeteries Threatened," The State, 22 Apr 2001, p. 1. col. 5, Web (newspapers.com, accessed 11 Feb 2023). Part 1. Newspapers Clip: 118353409, part 2 Newspapers Clip: 118353522
• "Cemetery Preservation," The Chicora Foundation, (Columbia, South Carolina), Web. (www.chicora.org, accessed 11 Feb 2023) [http://www.chicora.org/cemetery-preservation.html link[.