African Burial Ground National Monuments in the USA
African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City, New York
African Burying Ground and Memorial Park Portsmouth, New Hampshire also known as the "Negro Burying Ground"
African Burial Ground in Richmond, Virginia also know as "Burial Ground for Negroes"
Portsmouth African Burying Ground in New Hampshire
Welcome students of African American history? Those inquisitive learners of the history of African people in early America are most graciously welcome to Honorable and Impressionable's page exploring the various African buried grounds memorials throughout various locations within the United States. About 90% of U.S. public cemeteries became formally segregated in the beginning of the 1870's to the mid 1900's. According to Atlas Obscura.com, "Until the 1950's, about 90 percent of all public cemeteries in the U.S. employed a variety of racial restrictions...even when a religious cemetery was not entirely race restricted, different races were buried in separate parts of the cemetery, with whites usually getting the more attractive plots. So, from the 1920's to the 1950's, courts did not consider cemeteries to be public accommodations, so cemeteries did not quality for special civil rights protections." For those who cannot visit these African burial grounds or historical markers, Honorable and Impressionable is providing a virtual snapshot and look see into these national treasures with some pictures we have taken and found to feature our story and our history.
The main entrance to African Burial Ground National Monument at 290 Broadway in lower Manhattan.
"Look to the past to understand the present" Akan Proverb
The heart-shaped design raises questions when archeologists saw it on a coffin lid. It could be a Sanfofa symbol linked to the signifigance of West African cultural importance.
The heart-shaped design raises questions when archeologists saw it on a coffin lid. It could be a Sanfofa symbol linked to the signifigance of West African cultural importance.
Here is a map of the continent of Africa and the various tribes and countries along the West coast of Africa where indigeous Africans were kidnapped and captured by European slave traders for about 400 years.
It was explained to us on the tour that the reason why their heads were facing to the West was that each buried African had their heads/skulls placed towards the west and their feet placed towards to east. According to African tradition coinciding with African burial rites and rituals, once the bodies laid or sat up his or her head would be facing east, towards African and/or the Sun, which raises in the east and sets in the west.
The sacred tradition of libations is a ritual that honors our ancestors who are not here in the physical world. Do you remember young or older black men in any neighborhood in the US saying among their friends, while pouring out a little beer or alcohol on the ground before drinking saying "this is for the brothers or sisters who are not here? Well, unbeknownst to them they were carrying on with the traditions of their ancestors in Africa. The act of "pouring libation"-pouring liquid on the ground to mark an important event-is sacred tradition in African cultures. As explained, the ceremony connects the living with the dead to nourishes the spirit of decease ancestors in the spirit world. This act connects both worlds: the physical and the spiritual because both coexsist with each other in African traditions.
Here we have a timeline of 400 centuries of African people, first as explorers and navigators, then as enslaved people by Europeans and brought to the New World. Finally, by 1808 the legal TransAtlantic slave trade would ended for good however, the system of chattal slavery would continue until 1865 in the continental US.