Ceremony to open African Burial Ground to public in lower Manhattan
The Associated Press
Friday, October 5, 2007
NEW YORK: Busy workers polished the granite and tended to other last minute details at the African Burial Ground before a dedication ceremony Friday to open a memorial at the historic lower Manhattan site near City Hall.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and poet Maya Angelou were among the invited guests. The ceremony comes more than 200 years after the bodies of slaves and free blacks were buried there, and 16 years since their bones were rediscovered.
Starting Friday afternoon, visitors can enter a 20-foot-(6-meter-)high chamber of gray stone. Designer Rodney Leon stood inside the chamber before the dedication, his voice echoing inside the granite.
“Your voice is projected here,” he said. “Hopefully, it can be heard not only in the immediate area, but by the ancestors too.”
4 Comments
October 25, 2007 at 12:17 am
At one point there were more slaves in New York City than in the South. They built the walls of Wall Street, the first NY City Hall and Trinity Church. Most non-New Yorkers might not recognize the Church…This is the church that stands directly across the street from where the World Trade Center stood. It is featured in many scenes from “National Treasure” starring Nicholas Cage. A Subway worker I know related stories (before the burial ground was “discovered”) of how tunnel workers would find bones in the walls of the old tunnels beneath City Hall… There are a lot of misconceptions about slavery and my home town…imagine that?
October 8, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I think it was only a temporary exhibit. The next one they did earlier this year was the Civil War in New York. It was like part 2 to Slavery in NY. I had a friend who worked for the Historical Society, but I lost contact with him. He helped work on both exhibits.
October 7, 2007 at 12:50 am
The slavery in NY exhibit does sound interesting Ehav…I’m going to have to check that out. Seems to be a permanent exhibit, and it definitely should be. Thanks for that info! I’m going to put a link to the NY Historical Society in the blog…somewhere.
October 6, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Last year the New York Historical Society had to exhibits that were interesting. Slavery in New York and the Civil War and New York. I didn’t get to the Civil War and New York, but the slavery in NY was very interesting. There were a lot of maps, videos, and personal accounts.