The history of erasing Black cemeteries in the United States

The burial site looks like an abandoned site.

Holding the remains of over 22,000 enslaved and free people of color, Shockoe Hill African Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1816, is located among highways and surface roads. An abandoned auto shop, an electrical substation, and a massive billboard loom over the expanse of unmarked graves. The bare ground of the cemetery is overgrown with weeds.

Opposite, sitting opposite Shockoe Hill Cemetery. Founded in 1822, it remains a peaceful cemetery with grass, large trees and colorful marble headstones. This cemetery was created for white Christians.

I'm an archaeologist which studies how the past shapes social life. A few years ago I wrote with colleagues about heritage stolen human remains from African Americans in museums. During this time, I learned more about how African Americans often had to bury their dead in unauthorized places with little protection.

As I delved deeper into this story, what struck me most was that the differential treatment of African Americans in death was consistent with their continued mistreatment in life. Places like Shokoe were not forgotten by accident.

Although its goal was achieved and the graves were preserved, the Shockoe Hill African Cemetery, the largest cemetery for enslaved and free people of color in the United States, witnessed deliberate acts of violence. How historian Ryan K. Smith writesShoko “was not, as some would say, abandoned – it was actively destroyed.”

African burial grounds found and lost

This issue of protecting black cemeteries first came to public attention in 1991 when African cemetery in downtown New York was rediscovered and nearly destroyed by a construction project. It was only preserved through the valiant efforts of African American leaders and scholars.

In recent years, similar threats to black cemeteries and questions about their preservation have been reported on Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, Morning Star Tabernacle No. 88 in Maryland and newly opened cemetery in Florida, among many others.

Like other cemeteries, Shockoe Hill African Cemetery has long faced ongoing dangers, from grave robberies to construction projects.

Lenora McQueenwhose ancestor Kitty Carey was buried here in 1857 and led efforts to protect the cemetery. McQueen's tireless work—like the efforts required at any abandoned black cemetery in the country—ranged from collaboration with city officials to buy part of the siteCreation marker And frescoand assemble a team to earn a grave National Register of Historic Places recognition.

Smith explained in detail how, since Richmond's founding in the 1730s, people of European and African descent living in the city lived separate lives. By the early 1800s, officials formally organized various cemeteries for Richmond's different ethnic and racial communities.

Adjacent to the city almshouse and gunpowder magazine was a 1-acre cemetery for free blacks and another for the enslaved. However, these areas were sacred to the African American community. Funeral rituals included long processions, biblical sermons, spirituals, and public displays of grief.

However, it was quite easy to desecrate these graves. The cemetery was neither fenced nor formally maintained. Medical schools opened in the 1830s. burial robbery for corpses. At the end of the Civil War, retreating Confederates blew up a gunpowder magazinereportedly destroyed part of the cemetery.

City authorities officially closed the cemetery in 1879, systematic destruction of the site began, despite constant objections from black residents. Road and construction projects break through the burial grounds. Then-African American editor convicted “the people who profited from the desecration of the burial ground… when graves were dug up, bones were scattered, coffins were exposed, and the hearts of surviving families bled due to the desecration of the remains of their loved ones.”

In subsequent years, railroad tracks and an overpass were built in some areas of the cemetery. In 1960 Richmond city ​​authorities sold part of the burial ground Shell, and a gas station was built on the remains of people.

The fight to save Shoko

In 2011, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources conducted a study to determine legality of an abandoned auto shop for the National Register of Historic Places. The site assessment did not even consider the history of the Shockoe Hill African Cemetery under and around the building.

Six years later McQueen found out that her ancestor was buried at the burial ground. Horrified by the chaos in the cemetery, she became its main defender. McQueen eventually collected team of scientists and conservationists Conduct your own research into the suitability of the property in the national registry. They found that the cultural landscape—the traces of human activity that give a place its history and meaning—is important.

Additionally, the site's history of destruction has provided important evidence of the unequal treatment of Black burial grounds in the United States. The team has officially applied to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2022 Shockoe Hill Cemetery Historic District was successfully entered into the national registry.

Even despite this success, threats continue. Inclusion on the national registry provides prestige, grant opportunities, and reviews of federal projects, but little guarantee of protection. That same year, Shoko was added to the national registry. engineering communications were carried out in the area without consulting heritage officials.

A high speed rail projectif implemented as planned, it could disrupt the historical landscape of the cemetery. Projects for the memorialalthough well-intentioned, could further harm the site and jeopardize its status on the national registry if it is not considered a cemetery with graves.

The Shockoe Hill African Cemetery demonstrates the need for the United States to provide dignity to all its citizens, in life and in death. A cemetery It doesn't need famous residents or marble tombstones to matter.

How McQueen said about the eternal resting place of her ancestor: “Burial places are sacred.”

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