Mt Carmel

Feb 25

Site Brief:

Founded: 1847

Location: Memphis, TN

Additional name(s): N/A

Affiliate group(s): N/A

History:

Mt Carmel Cemetery is located at the northwest corner of Elvis Presley Blvd. and Elliston Rd. Over the years, the cemetery has been neglected, records lost due to fire, then abandoned. Negligence continues at present.

History of some influential people at Mt Carmel

-Tom Lee, African American, final resting place is at Mt Carmel. He became a Memphis hero on May 8, 1925, when he saved the lives of 32 white people from a capsized riverboat on the Mississippi River even though he could not swim. Tom Lee Park was established in 1954 and a monument erected on thirty acres of the riverfront in downtown Memphis.

-Sam Qualls, another prominent African American, final resting place is at Mt Carmel. He founded a funeral home in 1932. S.W. Qualls was one of the oldest mortuaries in the city.

-Lelia Mason, the wife of Mason Temple and Church of God in Christ (denomination) founder Charles Harrison Mason, final resting place is at Mt Carmel. Mason Temple is where Dr. Martin Luther King proclaimed in his last speech titled “Mountain Top”, on 4/3/1968, proclaimed “something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our World!”