African Burial Ground National Monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way (Elk Street) in Lower Manhattan (New York City) preserves a site containing the remains of more than 400 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been 15,000-20,000 burials in what was called the "Negroes Burial Ground" in the 1700s. The site's excavation and study was called "the most important historic urban archeological project in the United States."
The discovery highlighted the forgotten history of African slaves in colonial and federal New York City, who were integral to its development. By the American Revolutionary War, they constituted nearly a quarter of the population in the city, which had the second largest number of slaves in the nation after Charleston, South Carolina. Scholars and African-American civic activists joined to publicize the importance of the site and lobby for its preservation. In 1993 the site was designated a National Historic Landmark and in 2006 a National Monument.
In 2003 Congress appropriated funds for a memorial at the site and directed redesign of the federal building to allow for this. A design competition attracted more than 60 proposals for a design. The memorial was dedicated in 2007 to commemorate the role of Africans and African Americans in colonial and federal New York City, and in United States history. A visitor center opened in 2010 to provide interpretation of the site and African-American history in New York.
Read more about African Burial Ground National Monument: Africans and African Americans in New York City, "Negros Burial Ground", Discovery of Site and Controversy, African Burial Ground Studies, Memorial, Visitor Center, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words african, burial, ground, national and/or monument:
“I think it’s unfair for people to try to make successful blacks feel guilty for not feeling guilty.... We’re unique in that we’re not supposed to enjoy the things we’ve worked so hard for.”
—Patricia Grayson, African American administrator. As quoted in Time magazine, p. 59 (March 13, 1989)
“On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“[If not re-elected in 1864] then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“The monument of death will outlast the memory of the dead. The Pyramids do not tell the tale which was confided to them; the living fact commemorates itself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)