Madison County Cemetery Remembrance Project (the Periwinkle Project)

The Madison County Cemetery Remembrance Project is part of a larger western North Carolina cemetery remembrance project sponsored by a grant from Land of Sky Regional Council. It was started in the summer of 2024.

We are a group of Mars Hill University students and professors who care deeply about the Appalachian region. Working with archival sources and local historians and community members, we pieced together a narrative for three local African-American cemeteries. Through this, we learned the stories of the folks who live here, who are buried here, and who will continue the stories of the people in these cemeteries. ​

​According to local historians, periwinkle was sometimes used as a decorative flower in the cemeteries of the region. Inspired by the vast and beautiful amount of periwinkle we saw in our journey, we called ourselves The Periwinkle Project.

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MHU Students in AS 327: Beau Barrera-Hernandez, Brogan Heavner, Jennifer Miranda-Piñeda, Darian Smathers, Nicolas Varner, Megan Walters, and Taylor Zima, with instructor Leila Weinstein.