By Mike Damiano, Globe staff
At the Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester, there are two burial sections side by side for deceased residents of Beacon Hill homes for “aged women”: one for elderly white women and one for elderly Black women.
But there is a striking difference between them. For every grave of a white woman, there is a headstone bearing her name. The graves of the Black women are unmarked.
This inequality has persisted for more than 150 years, since the Home for Aged Colored Women began burying its residents at Cedar Grove in 1873. Now, a group of neighbors, former city officials, and nonprofit leaders are trying to fix it.
On Wednesday evening, an art installation was unveiled at the site and the names of the 133 women known to have been buried there were read off during a ceremony.Eventually, the group plans to install permanent memorials with the women’s names.
Nearly 100 people filled the pews of the cemetery’s chapel, as violinist Adrian Anantawan performed as they arrived for the 5 p.m. ceremony.
“We cannot change the circumstances of the burial, but we can change what happens now,” said Diana Lam, president of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. “We can speak their names, we can honor their lives, we can tell their stories, and we can ensure the future generations know that these women were here.”
The project began when Joyce Linehan, a former aide to ex-Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh who lives in Dorchester, walked her dog past the burial site and noticed it was marked only by a stone inscribed with the name of the Home for Aged ColoredWomen. She wondered who was buried there and started asking questions.
Linehan’s friend Karilyn Crockett, also a former city official and a professor at MIT, then launched a multiyear research project that led to the discovery of the buried women’s names and shed light on a mostly forgotten chapter of the city’s history.
“These women were building a city for us and with us at a time [when] they were not given credit or recognition for that at all,” Crockett said.
Read more in the Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/02/metro/cedar-grove-cemetery-unmarked-graves/
