Gravestones from 1817 to 1927 depicting the symbol of the Mosaic Templars of America (MTA)

The photographs were taken May 28, 2006 at the Whitehill Cemetery (a.k.a. the Mound Cemetery) in Arkansas City, Desha Co., Arkansas. A once-booming Mississippi River port town before the 1927 flood, it now has a population of about 300. The MTA was an African-American fraternal organization established in Little Rock in 1875 that “provided services to black people during the era of segregation when few basic services were available to them. By 1900, Mosaic Templars industries grew to include an insurance company, a building and loan association, a publishing company, a business college, a nursing school and a hospital” (http://www.mosaictemplarscenter.com/history/).