When many of us think of slavery, we think of something that exsisted so long ago. Even if we are able to see the inequality that is present now a days I still do not feel that we understand to what extent it reaches to.
I am a junior at Lehman College, today my class sat in with a "Negro in New York" class. Some of the things I learned today blew me away.
Did you know that in 1991, there was construction being done to build the Federal State Building located at 290 Broadway NY, NY. While beginning this construction they began to find bones, at first a few, then a few turned into hundreds. They were building on top of the Negro Burial Grounds, which dates back to the 1700's. All who were included in this project didn't know what to do with the bones, but knew they had to keep it out of the press. The archeologist who were involved on this project happened to be from Lehman College, so they stored the bones in the basement of the college. *Those who have attended or attend Lehman know that there is a tunnel that leads from the Old Gym building to the Cafeteria.* Well this is where is was stored. A journalistat the time inquired as to what was going on at the construction site (they had built a big wall so that no one could see this discovery of the bones). Well this journalist contacted channel 5 news who sent ova a helicopter to get a birds eye view of what was going on.
Needless to say that this spread like wild fire. There was debating, petitions and many meeting/conferences held, demanding that this site be preserved and for them to stop construction. Eighteen months of this fight....finally they rewarded us with 15,000 sqft of the 6.6 arces that the cemetary actually covers. The bones were sent to Howard University for further analysts, returned to NY in 1993.
On October 4, 2003, the 419 ancestral remains were reinterned in the African Burial Ground. It wasn't until February 2006 that a portion of burial ground was established a National Monument. It wasn't until October 2007 that the African Burial Ground National Monument was opened.
I felt it was imprtant for this to be told to all of you. Sankofa! which means that you must learn from your past and carry it on into your future. I wish you all well and please remember that just because you may feel like you are Free and Equal....just ask yourself would they have ever done this to their own?
Sankofa!
