Memorial Cemetery - Jacksonville, FL - Worldwide Cemeteries on Waymarking.com

Memorial Cemetery, Sunset Memorial Cemetery, and Pinehurst Cemetery on the north side, which are near Moncreif Road around Edgewood Avenue West and Avenue B, were developed between 1909 and 1928 and were owned by Memorial Cemetery Association, which A.L. Lewis formed to provide plots for blacks who were excluded by segregation from being buried in white cemeteries.

The A.L. Lewis Mausoleum is located in Memorial Cemetery. Built in 1939, the Lewis Mausoleum has an Art Deco style architecture. A historical marker next to the mausoleum reads as follows:

Pioneer Abraham Lincoln Lewis (1865-1947) and others founded Florida’s oldest African-American insurance company, Afro-American Life in 1901, which spread throughout the South as far as Texas. In 1926, A.L. Lewis opened Lincoln Golf and Country Club where the famous visited, such as heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (1914-1981). Later Lewis founded American Beach, which in 1935 was a recreational haven for blacks during segregation. Although most noted for the Afro, A.L. Lewis started Florida’s first black-owned and operated bottling company and assisted Booker T. Washington in establishing the national Negro Business League. Throughout his life A.L. Lewis continued to serve as a dynamic leader in countless organizations such as the 33rd Masonic Order and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he was a principle financial supporter. He also provided financial support to Edward Waters College and Bethune Cookman College. Interred in this nationally historic mausoleum, which was registered in 1997, are his immediate family and first wife, Mary Sammis Lewis (1865-1923), who was the great-granddaughter of Anna and Zephaniah Kingsley of Kingsley Plantation, today a national park on Fort George Island.

There appear to be several thousand graves in this cemetery.