"African Burial Grounds" by: Ashley Alele

            Because of Freshman Seminar, I was able to take a free trip to New York and visit the African Burial Grounds located in Manhatten. This was a great experience for me and I learned a lot about my history as an African American. When I got there, Mr. T. Rasul Murray gave us a tour of the memorial which was built where the graves were first discovered. Around the memorial were Nsibidi symbols which were an ancient ideographic writing system invented by Ekoi people.
           After we took a tour of the outdoor memorial we went inside. We first watched a video about when the site was first discovered. At first people wanted to keep it quiet because it wqas discovered during the construction of a new office building. Scholars argued that this was the most important archeological discovery. When they discovered the bones, they were sent to Howard University for observation. When the research was concluded, they returned the bones to the burial ground after a 6 day ceremony. The burial ground was first a Marland pond whose burial period was 1712-1794. The actual burial ground was first called the Negroe Burial Ground.
            After the presentation, a Howard Alumnus, Lashaya Howie c/o 2006, gave us a presentation on the Burial Grounds. She started off by telling us the reason we were there was to learn the history of the African Burial Ground and the contemporary story of strength. I learned that in 1624 eleven enslaved men were brought here first and decided to petition for their freedom, they got a conditional freedom which granted them the marshland to grow crops. Africans cleared the land for popular streets and the wall for Wall Street. 200 years passed that people forgot about the burial ground until they began building a $275 billion federal building which stumbledc upon it. There was a huge struggle having the African Burial Ground commemorated. There were 419 bodies found but to this day there is said to e 15,000 bodies over 6.6 acres that werent discovered. The building was still built but a portion was dedicated to the African Burial Ground. After the presentation we were allowed to explore the artifacts.
              Overall this trip was a great experience for me. I learned a lot about my ancestors and the shopping in Harlem was fun. I'll never forget this trip. "You may bury me in the bottom of Manhatten, I will rise, my people will get me. I wiil rise out the ,huts of history's shame." Maya Angelou, 10/4/03