For close to six decades, Highland Cemetery served as one of three private cemeteries open to African Americans in Kansas City. Established in 1909, it became the final resting place for more than 11,000 people before 1950. Among them were Bennie Moten, the famous jazz pianist; civil rights activist Daniel Arthur Holmes; granddaughter of Frederick Douglass, Fredericka Douglass Prague Sperry; and thousands more. When, in 1964, segregated cemeteries were made illegal, the resources that had maintained Highland Cemetery (through payment for burials) flowed instead to previously white cemeteries. Highland Cemetery fell into disrepair, though recent efforts by local students have attempted to clean up the cemetery and honor the many people interred there.

On February 12, 1909, the Highland Cemetery Company purchased a 29-acre tract of land on the outskirts of Kansas City from John and Frances Eames. The land cost $15,000. Several months later, Sallie Powell was buried in Highland Cemetery, becoming the first person interred there. 

Highland Cemetery was different from other Kansas City cemeteries in one critical way: at the time it was built, it was the only private cemetery open to African American people. By 1964, when legal segregation in Kansas City came to an end, it was one of three cemeteries to serve the area's Black population.

The cemetery is now owned by the Land Trust of Jackson County, which took over the property when it fell behind on taxes.

Black Archives of America in Kansas City now owns the cemetery burial records (816) 221-1600.