African Burial Ground National Monument (New York City)]]> Subject (Topic)
African Americans--New York
Cemeteries--New York
New York City--History
Northeastern United States
Public art
Public sculpture
Slave trade
Slavery--New York (State)

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Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture

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The memorial sits on .35 acres and includes seven distinct design features: Wall of Remembrance, Ancestral Re-Interment Grove, Memorial Wall, The Ancestral Chamber, Circle of the Diaspora, Spiral Processional Ramp, and The Ancestral Libation Court.

The visitor is invited to walk through the monumental triangular structure known as “The Ancestral Chamber,” which represents the Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean. After passing through the chamber, the visitor encounters a spiral memorial wall featuring twenty religious symbols including a number of Adinkra symbols (Akan peoples, Ghana). The floor of the monument includes a world map centered on the West African coast with sun rays radiating towards North America, Brazil, Europe, and the Caribbean Islands.

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https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?pg=3570929&id=19CBA11C-155D-451F-67AA7B78DDDCB3A4]]> Description of the seven elements from Rodney Leon, “The Ancestral Libation Chamber: Memorial on the African Burial Ground National Memorial,” National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/afbg/learn/historyculture/upload/Rodney-Leon-Memorial.pdf.

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Wall of Remembrance
As one happens by the north wall facing Duane Street you are immediately struck by the scale and detail of a highly polished wall of granite inscribed with following libation text.

For all those who were lost
For all those who were stolen
For all those who were left behind
For all those who were not forgotten

The Wall of Remembrance is intended to draw a person in, and thus begin the process of enlightenment and education.

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Ancestral Re-interment Grove
A path extends itself north to south from Duane Street. Along this path are seven burial mounds marking the locations of the seven large sarcophagi containing the remains of the 419 African descendants that were re-interred in October of 2003. In addition, a grove of seven trees create a natural buffer and shelter between the re-interment zone and adjacent building. The burial mounds serve as markers and the trees as guardians for the entrance to the Libation Chamber. It is appropriate to place flowers and other offerings along the path in front of the burial mounds.

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Memorial Wall
The Southern wall of the Libation Chamber shall be engraved with a map containing images and text describing the components of the African Burial Ground National Monument site in context of the burial ground's actual boundaries in lower Manhattan. This map will allow people to understand the extent and scope of the burial ground's actual size which extends significantly beyond the boundaries of the memorial site.

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The Ancestral Chamber
The Ancestral Chamber is intended to reflect African cultural, spiritual and ancestral essence. This spiritual form rises out of the ground like an ancestral pillar and represents the soaring African spirit embracing and comforting all those who enter. The Ancestral Chamber is oriented towards the east and open to the sky above, allowing natural light to penetrate and illuminate the interior space. The interior of The Ancestral Chamber provides a sacred space for individual contemplation, reflection, meditation and prayer.

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Circle of the Diaspora
Signs, symbols and images of the African Diaspora are engraved around the perimeter wall encircling the Libation Court. These symbols come from different areas and cultures throughout the Diaspora, especially Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Symbolic meaning is described below the image. As one circumambulates around the perimeter of the court and spirals down the processional ramp, these symbols present themselves as a reminder of the complexity and diversity of African culture's manifestation. They all come together to form a communal place and a reminder of the Burial Ground being an international center of gathering. For a complete list of the symbols, see https://www.nps.gov/afbg/learn/historyculture/adinkra-symbols.htm.

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Spiral Processional Ramp
The Spiral Processional Ramp descends down 4’ below street level thereby bringing the visitor physically, psychologically and spiritually closer to the ancestors and original interment level. The ramp and stairs serve as bridges between the living and the spiritual realm. They symbolize the process of transcendence from physical to spiritual and passage from profane to sacred. The process will evolve from the public “secular” space of the city to the spiritual space of the Libation Court and culminate in the sacred space of The Ancestral Chamber.

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Ancestral Libation Court
The Ancestral Libation Court is situated on axis with The Ancestral Chamber. It is located 4’ below street level, providing a physical and psychological separation from the public activity of the surrounding urban environment. The Libation Court is a communal gathering place where small to medium-scale public cultural ceremonies may occur. This spiritual space is where re- consecration of the African Burial Ground National Monument will continually take place during the libation or other ceremonial rituals. The sacred ceremonial ritual of “libation” is the act which will serve as an offering and an acknowledgement linking past, present and future generations in the spirit of Sankofa (an Adinkra symbol of West Africa meaning ‘learn from the past’).

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“African Burial Ground.” The New York Preservation Archive Project. Accessed April 11, 2019, http://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/african-burial-ground/.

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Frohne, Andrea E. The African Burial Ground in New York City: Memory, Spirituality, Space. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2015.

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"African Burial Ground : African Burial Ground National Monument, New York." Tourist Map, National Park Service, 2011. Accessed May 24, 2020, https://www.loc.gov/item/2011587283/.

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We Stand in Honor of Those Forgotten) (Portsmouth, NH)]]> Subject (Topic)
African Americans--New Hampshire--History
Cemeteries--New Hampshire
New Hampshire--History
Northeastern United States
Public art
Public sculpture
Slavery

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Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture

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The memorial is composed of a number of distinct elements. A rectangular granite stele on State Street marks the memorial’s entrance. On one side, below the engraved text that reads “African Burying Ground Memorial,” a life-size bronze figure of a man stands with his back against the stone stele. His left-hand reaches out and back, towards the other side of the stele. On the opposite side, a life-size bronze figure of a woman mirrors the gesture of her male counterpart. The sculptor, Jerome Meadows, leaves a gap between the outstretched hands of the two figures.

On the opposite end of the memorial, a group of eight life-size vertical bronze and concrete silhouettes, each inscribed with a line from a poem written by Meadows, stand in a semi-circle around the burial vault. The figural group is surrounded by a metal railing, embellished with ceramic tiles. The design of the 110 ceramic tiles is inspired by Kinte cloth patterns and based on the original drawings created in a workshop Meadows facilitated with students from a local middle school. The burial vault contains the re-interred remains of the 13 individuals found on the site in 2003. The vault is marked with a Sankofa, a West African Adinkra symbol that means “Return and Get It — Learn from the Past.”

The sculptural groups are connected by the “Petition Line,” a ribbon of pinks stone, which contrasts with the gray stone walkway of the memorial. The Petition Line contains excerpts from a formal document submitted to the New Hampshire legislature in 1779 by 20 enslaved individuals petitioning for their freedom. To the right is an information marker that provides visitors with the historical context for the memorial, as well as the poem by Meadows - I Stand For Those Forgotten.

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First bronze plaque on Information Marker:
I stand for the Ancestors Here and Beyond
I stand for those who feel anger
I stand for those who were treated unjustly
I stand for those who were taken from their loved ones
I stand for those who suffered the middle passage
I stand for those who survived upon these shores
I stand for those who pay homage to this ground
I stand for those who find dignity in these bones
--Jerome Meadows, artist and sculptor

The Entry Figures--The male figure stands for the first enslaved Africans brought to Portsmouth and those who followed. The female figure represents Mother Africa, endlessly straining past the obstacles that keep her from her children of the Diaspora. Together, as each figure reaches around the edge of the granite slab towards the other, they physically embody the separation and uncertainty of those brought here as captives as well as their perserverance. The gap between their fingertips is a reminder of their forced separation and of the divisions of past injustices.

The Petition Line--In 1779, twenty men who had been forcibly brought from West Africa when they were children and were purchased by prominent local families, petitioned the New Hampshire legislature for their freedom and for the end of slavery in the state. Quoting phrases from this “Petition for Freedom,” the petition line is a visual and historical thread linking the elements of the monument and putting eloquent voice to those so long forgotten and ignored. Extending from the entry figures through a space of contemplation, the line disappears into the burial vault beneath the plaza. The West African symbol adorning this line is “Nsoromma” that means “Child of the Heavens” and is an icon of guardian ship.

Burial Vault Lid--The Adinkra figure “Sankofa” meaning “Return And Get It--Learn From The Past” forms a shield and cover for the burial vault containing the reinterred remains of those exhumed in 2003 and additional partial remains found at the site during preparations for the memorial.

Community Figures--These life-sized bronze sihouettes represent the collective community of greater Portsmouth, gather with resolve to acknowledge, protect, and pay homage to the souls whose remains were uncovered in 2003. Each figure bears a line from the poem by the memorial designer and sculptor Jerome Meadows, inspired by this sacred place.

Decorative Railing--The design is based on an African Kente cloth motif suggestive of boat paddles. The ceramic tiles embedded in the railing were created by students from Portsmouth Public Schools. By forming the tiles, these school children link hands with past children who worked here and future generations who will stop, remember, and stand for those fogotten.

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Second bronze plaque on Information Marker:
We Stand In Honor Of Those Forgotten

This Memorial was created by the people of Portsmouth. Those buried here are not part of black history or white history. This is our collective history.

The symbol chosen to represent the solemn intent of the African Burying Ground Memorial and its close historical connection to West Africa is the distinctive Sankofa symbol from the Akan people of Ghana. For those Africans forcibly removed from their homeland to be enslaved in America, and for those of us reflecting on that history now, we take the Sankofa and its timeless meaning to heart: “Return And Get It--Learn From The Past.”

The first known enslaved African, a man from Guinea, arrived in Portsmouth in 1645. He was among hundreds of African captives to live in slavery in New Hampshire. Throughout the Colonial Era, New Hampshire's affluent port had the largest number of slaves in the colony, up to 4 percent of the population recorded in the census of 1767. By 1810, few if any people of African ancestry were still enslaved in Portsmouth. Although early town records and other public documents made references to the “Negro Burying Yard,” the memory of the African Burying Ground and its occupants--which may number over 200--faded as the decades passed.

The burying ground was built over and nearly forgotten--until October 7, 2003 when a work crew unexpectedly exposed deteriorating wooden coffins containing human remains. Forensic archaeology and DNA analysis confirmed the individuals exhumed as African. Portsmouth began a community discussion about this historic and sensitive site and determined that space should be restored to sacred ground. The process to create a memorial and to re-inter the disturbed remains began. In the spring of 2015, the remains were re-interred in the burial vault that is the focal point of this Memorial.

The Portsmouth African Burying Ground Memorial stands for those who were fogotten. The burial site acknowledges their humanity, and ours. With design elements chosen in a series of community dialogues about the past, present, and future, this Memorial provides an opportunity to look back and reflect on the history shared with those buried here, in a space whose extent is not fully defined. Although their identities are not known, their presence beneath our feet urges us to recognize them--and others forgotten--as individuals with stories that come alive as we look back and remember.

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“Memorial Park Design.” Portsmouth African Burying Ground. Accessed May 6, 2019, http://www.africanburyinggroundnh.org/mpd.html.

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“Portsmouth African Burying Ground Memorial Park.” Department of Public Works, City of Portsmouth. Accessed May 6, 2019, https://www.cityofportsmouth.com/publicworks/portsmouth-african-burying-ground-memorial-park.

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The Path of Thorns and Roses (Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, Alexandria, VA)
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Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial]]> African Americans--Virginia
Alexandria (Va.)--History
American South
Cemeteries--Virginia
Freedmen--Virginia
Fugitive slaves--United States
Public art
Public sculpture]]>
Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture

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The Path of Thorns and Roses is an 18-foot high sculpture that spirals upwards and includes six allegorial figures: Oppression (a semi-nude male figure), Struggle (a semi-nude male figure at the base of the sculpture), Sacrifice (a woman who grasps the limp body of a child), Loss (a woman enfolded onto herself), and Compassion (a woman holding a baby and reaching towards Loss). Hope, a man with a bald head, stands on his toes within a large circle of thorns. The figure of Hope holds an unbloomed rose in his outstretched hands. Alongside the statue is a four-walled structure, “The Place of Remembrance,” the includes the names of individuals interred at the site as well as historical information on African Americans in Alexandria during the Civil War. Limestone blocks mark individual graves.

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Virtual Tour of Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial on Google 360 virtual tours]]> Bronze plaque on base of sculpture:
The Path of Thorns and Roses. Created and sculpted by Mario Chido, 2013. Public art owned by the City of Alexandria, Virginia. Cast by Mussi Artworks Foundry, California.

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Engraving on base of sculpture:
“I am thankful there is a beginning. I am full of hope for tomorrow. A Power mightier than man is guiding this revolution; and though justice moves slowly, it will come at last. The American people will outlive this mean prejudice against complexion.” —Harriet Jacobs, freedwoman, author, educator and dedicated aid worker in Alexandria during the Civil War

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Inset brick with bronze lettering on plaza:
1955 Gas Station. Under this plaza is the concrete floor of a gas station, the construction of which desecrated many graves. The flooring was kept in place to protect the graves that remain below.

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Text from Wall One of "The Place of Remembrance":
Welcome to Contrabands and Freemen Cemetery Memorial

During the Civil War, Alexandria’s population swelled with more than 20,000 enslaved African Americans fleeing Confederate territory for safety behind Union lines. Initially called Contrabands because they were considered “property” taken during wartime, they would later be called Freedmen. The new arrivals joined Alexandria’s free and enslaved African Americans, hoping to find jobs, homes, educational opportunities, and lost family. They also found deplorable living conditions and a raging smallpox epidemic. Many people died just as freedom came within reach.

The federal government established a cemetery for the dead here in 1864. A formal record documents the burials for 1,711 individuals through January 1869 when the government abandoned the cemetery. The community of Freedmen was left the task of maintenance, and may have continued using the burial ground well after it closed. Over time, its wooden grave markers deteriorated, and the cemetery suffered many desecrations. An adjacent brick manufactory excavated clay, exposing bones and coffins. The paving of Washington Street covered and disturbed graves and the development of a gas station, the Beltway, and an office building destroyed hundreds more.

Locations of many of the surviving graves remain unidentified but more than 540 have been found by archaeologists and given markers. Though individuals can no longer be linked to burial plots, the names of those buried in this cemetery survive. They are inscribed here, along with ages, dates, and places of death, and notes left by the record-keeper. Today, visitors to the cemetery memorial join descendants of the Contrabands and Freedman in honoring the memorial of these freedom seekers.

Individuals for whom living descendants have been identified are noted with this marker.

[The following text appears above the bronze plaques with the names of those buried at the site.]

In Alexandria’s first known civil rights protest,… members of the United States Colored Troops signed a petition requesting that black soldiers be buried alongside their white comrades in arms at the nearby military cemetery. Some Authors fought their request and, in one instance, the caisson of a USCT soldier en route to the military cemetery was forcibly re-routed to his cemetery. Still, the soldiers won their battle, and in January 1865, caskets of over a hundred USCT soldiers were disinterred from this burial ground and moved to Alexandria’s National Cemetery where they are recognized by stone markers today. Their names are listed below.

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Text from Wall Two of "The Place of Remembrance":
[The following text appears below an 1865 grid street plan of Alexandria]

The City

The Freedom seekers who arrived in Alexandria joined a large existing community of African Americans, including many free and enslaved individuals. These residents, new and old, helped to shape the city, establishing neighborhoods, and founding churches and schools. They also went to work on the railroads, at the wharves, in factories and small businesses, at hospitals and army encampments, and in their homes.

Freedmen’s Cemetery
This burial ground for African Americans was established by the federal government on the outskirts of town, on land owned by Francis Smith, Robert E. Lee’s attorney.

Soldiers Cemetery
Injured soldiers of the US Colored Troops convalescing at L’Ouverture Hospital successfully petitioned for the right to a burial alongside their white comrades at this military cemetery.

Slave Jail and L’Ouverture Hospital
The Price Birch and Co. slave jail at 1315 Duke Street was once the last stop for thousands of slaves sold south to a life of extreme hardship. The Union army commandeered the property as a jail. In 1804, a hospital was built nearby that treated African American soldiers and civilians for diseases like tuberculosis and typhoid, Shiloh Baptist Church congregation formed here.

Contraband Barracks and School
Some Freedmen found housing in crowded barracks like those on Prince Street. Despite the difficult conditions. Freedmen attended a school established at the barracks.

African American Schools
Deprived of an education by slavery, Contraband and Freedmen seized the opportunity to learn. Adults and children alike filled Contraband schools across the city learning for the first time to read and write.

African American Neighborhoods
While some of those arriving in Alexandria settled into established free black neighborhoods such as Hayti and the Bottoms, most camped out in deserted buildings or on marginal land, often constructing their own huts and shacks. These crowded settlements eventually became new African American neighborhoods such as Cross-Canal, Petersburg, and Grantville.

African American Churches
Places of gathering, faith, aid, and activism, Alexandria’s black churches were critical to the Contraband and Freedmen community. Many of Alexandria’s present-day congregations began meeting during the war.

Railroads
Alexandria’s strategic location where railroads met waterways made it a center of supply for the Union army. Rails also transported soldiers to the front and brought back the wounded to Alexandria’s hospital. Many Freedmen became railroad workers helping to keep goods and personnel moving.

Wharves
Many Contrabands and Freemen worked on the waterfront, processing, loading, and unloading goods coming in on ships and by rail. These laborers kept a steady stream of food and supplies flowing to the Union army.

[The following text appears below a bas-relief of enslaved people escaping bondage]

Fleeing slavery for sanctuary and freedom in Alexandria

When Virginia seceded in May of 1861, Union troops occupied Alexandria and turned the port town into a staging area and base for operation. It also became a beacon for freedom seekers who took the opportunity war provided to escape enslavement. Thousands of fleeing African Americans made the dangerous and difficult journey through Confederate territory, often traveling on foot, some coming from hundreds of miles away. They arrived in Alexandria hungry, tired, and with few resources, and began searching our food, clothing shelter, medical treatment, and education.

[The following quote appears to the right of the bas-relief.]

“I traveled 65 miles and we had 52 on our number before, we crost, the river…we tought, we wold, be taken eny moment, the babys cried, and we could whear, the sound of them. On the warter. We lay all night in the woods, and next day we traveled on and we reached, Suffolk that night and we lost twenty one of the Number.” —Emma Bynum, a freedwoman describing her flights to freedmen in a composition for her schoolteacher, Miss Lucy Chase

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Text from Wall Three of "The Place of Remembrance":
[The following text appears below a bas-relief of a school teacher surrounded by her students.]

Learning to read at an Alexandria freedmen’s school

Overwhelmed by their numbers, Alexandria could offer little aid to the newly arrived Contrabands. Some took up residence in temporary barracks created near the site of a former slave jail. Others found shelter in free black neighborhoods or in abandoned buildings and shanties. Social workers like Julia Wilbur, a white Quaker from New York, and Harriet Jacobs, a black freedwoman, responded to the need by gathering supplies, attending to medical problems, and setting up school and other community services. Despite their efforts, many particularly children, died from exposure or disease. Still, the freed people worked tirelessly to create new lives, and in the process, reshaped the city of Alexandria.”

[The following quote appears to the right of the bas-relief.]

“Besides the school in the barracks there are our others in the city, which are self-sustaining, one containing one hundred and fifty pupils, It is an astonishing fact, which ought to be placed upon record…that out of the two thousand people collected at Alexandria there are four hundred children sent daily to school. The first demand of these fugitives when they come into this place is that their children may go to school.” —Harriet Jacobs, freedwoman, educator, and aid worker in Alexandria, April 29, 1863

[The following text appears below an aerial map of the cemetery]

The Site:
The cemetery was established in 1864 and officially closed in 1869. Burials probably continued after this time, even as the wooden grave markers from the Civil War era deteriorated. Over the next century, this site endured many intrusions, and no longer appeared to be a sacred place. This site map identified features uncovered by historical and archaeological research, as well as desecrations, that occurred through the 1990s.”

1) Memorial Fence: Today, a steel fence evokes the wooden picket fence that once encircled the cemetery. The historic boundary is unknown, but likely included additional land that was paved over during the construction of South Washington Street.

2) Carriage Path: Carts carrying the dead entered the cemetery along this route.

3) Grave Shafts: Archaeology has identified more than 540 of the 1,711 burials believed to be present on site. Although no graves or artifacts were disturbed, the study revealed evidence of prior destruction caused by development of the site.

4) American Indian Site: Thousands of stone artifacts were discovered during archaeological investigations, including a 13,000 year old Clovis spear point. These finds suggest that American Indians periodically visited this bluff overlooking Hunting Creek for millennia to manufacture tools for hunting, scraping, hides, and other activities.

5) United States Colored Troops Section: As a result of a successful protest by USCT to be buried with full honors alongside their white comrades, the caskets of USCT were moved from a section of the cemetery to the nearby military cemetery in 1805.

6) Brickyard: Clay excavations may have occurred on the western edge of the cemetery, resulting in the desecration of graves, as noted by an 1892 Washington Post article: Of late the owners have been allowing the neighboring brickyard to dig clay from the outer edges of the graveyard with which to make brick. This digging has resulted in the unearthing of many coffins and skeletons, leaving the outer graves in very bad condition.

7) Gas Station: The current memorial plaza is built atop the floor and foundations of a service station built in 1955.

8) Office Building: The slab of a 1960 office building was covered during the memorial’s construction to protect the graves presumed to be below. A reconstruction portion of the building can still be seen on Church Street. Two stone Markers located the southernmost corners of the building.

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Text from Wall Four of “The Place of Remembrance”:
“I have just witnessed a novel and solemn scene, a funeral in the open air. The deceased, Peter Washington, was an old man, and a slave until the breaking out of the war… After the signing and a prayer, a minister, an early associate of the deceased gave a brief sketch of the life of Peter Washington. He had eight children; in one day he was bereft of his six daughters and five grandchildren. ‘On that day’ said the minister, ‘he leant on me, and with a bursting heart exclaimed, “If it were not my hope in Christ, I could not bear up under this trial.”’ [M]any of his hearers seemed to find an echo to a like experience in their own souls, They swayed their forms, and moaned as if some wound of the past was being dressily probed. No child of his came to bid him a last farewell, they are scattered I know not where: his two sons are in the army battling for the country their father loved inspite of her persecutions to him and his.” —Harriet Jacobs, freedwoman, educator, and aid worker in Alexandria, describing the funeral of Peter Washington, buried here May 32, 1864

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Text from grave marker:
Many of the African Americans who fled to Alexandria to escape enslavement and those already living here succumbed to disease and deprivation during and shortly after the Civil War. Carts bearing the dead entered the cemetery along a path in this location. Stones mark the locations of more than 540 graves identified by archaeologists and now protected by the memorial. According to historic records, the cemetery once held nearly 1,200 additional graves, many of which were destroyed by buildings and roads. Of the people laid to rest here, over half were children under the age of sixteen.

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“Contrabands & Freedmen Cemetery Memorial.” City of Alexandria Virginia. February 2, 2018. Accessed March 21, 2018. https://www.alexandriava.gov/FreedmenMemorial.

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“Forgotten Cemetery for Freed Slaves Rediscovered.” CBS Evening News. September 10, 2014. Accessed March 21, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pK4e8daKPc.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pK4e8daKPc

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