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Rites
of Ancestral Return
Tribute
Honors African Remains
By
Junious Ricardo Stanton While
preparing ground breaking and excavation for the construction of
a new federal office building in Lower Manhattan workmen
discovered the remains of a burial ground where as many as
20,000 free and enslaved Africans were interred during the
Colonial Period of America.
Once the remains were discovered work ceased because
black activists made an issue of stopping work by laying down in
front of bulldozers because they felt the ground was sacred.
Finally
the federal government agreed not to further desecrate the site
and to allow researchers to catalogue the remains. However,
activists fearing white researchers would be insensitive to the
significance and disrespectful towards of the remains demanded
an African-American research team be allowed to conduct the
research.
A
team from Howard University in Washington D.C. was chosen to
collect the remains, catalogue, and study them. The
University’s studies reveal much about the lives and deaths of
many of those interred in the graves. First, they discovered
many of the bodies were buried in traditional African fashion or
they were buried facing home –
Africa.
Many
of the remains indicated severe physical strain, such as broken
bones. One woman’s skeleton had a musket ball lodged in the
rib cage; others revealed diseases and weariness from back
breaking work. The study has been completed and the Schomburg
Center For Research in Black Culture, an arm of the New York
Public Library, organized a special reinternment tribute
entitled Rites of Ancestral Return. Howard Dodson, the
Director of the Schomburg Center, accompanied the coffins from
Howard University on each stop of the tribute.
Each
stop along the symbolic and ceremonial journey featured the
pouring of libations,
prayers, and songs as crowds turned out to pay homage to the
remains of those unknown Africans: a
man, woman, and two children who received more respect
and reverence hundreds of years after their deaths than they did
while they were alive.
From
Washington, the tribute moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where
ceremonies were held at the Willard W. Allen Masonic Temple.
From there they traveled to the African Union Church in
Wilmington, Delaware for an evening service.
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On
Thursday, the entourage arrived in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania for an ecumenical service at historic
Mother Bethel AME Church, which was founded by Richard
Allen. Mother Bethel is located in the heart of what was
the Colonial African Community.
The
sanctuary was jammed with school children and elders,
many dressed in traditional, ceremonial, or stylish
African garb. From Mother Bethel the four hand-carved
African mahogany coffins were carried two blocks north
to Washington Square, one time known as Congo Square, for symbolic interment.
The next leg of the journey was a 6 PM evening service
in Newark, New Jersey at Bethany Baptist Church. On
Friday the coffins ferried to New York, arriving at the
Wall Street pier and taken to the Wall Street site of
the infamous Colonial New York Slave Market.
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Following an all night vigil and tour of the five
boroughs the remains along with the remains of 200 hundred
others will be reinterred in New York.
The
Philadelphia ceremony was moving, reverent, and deeply
spiritual. Following the ceremony in Congo Square the remains
were placed on a bus for transport to Newark, New Jersey. A
tribute reception and repast was held at the African American
Museum at 701 Arch several blocks north of Congo Square.
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Rev.
Eyele Yetunde participated in the ecumenical service at Mother
Bethel. For her it was an emotional experience.
“It’s
a time of celebration because it was a home going. It
was a time of mourning because the foundation of this
country was built on the oppression of our ancestors and
it’s a reminder of the fact we still have along way to
go. "It
was also a beautiful thing to see how everybody in our
community came together here in Philadelphia in this
ecumenical service to remember the fact that we have to
reclaim that which is ours, to remember the cultural
significance of our ancestors and remember the
significance of Sankofa, remembering where we came from
in order to know where we are going and make sure we
don’t repeat the ugly part of our history.”
Dr
Michelle Strongfields, a physician currently living and working
in Guyana, South America, was home for a visit, heard
about the tribute and came because she said she felt
compelled to come. |
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“I was drawn to this. I had to come. The most significant
thing for me today was I had been struggling and wrestling
whether or not I wanted to return to the states and today has
crystallized for me the fact that I’ll be back to pick up the
tread of work that I left and see if I can connect it to what I
am doing now.”
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Historian
Charles Blockson, an authority on African-Americans in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Colonial period and who has
authored numerous books on African-Americans, spoke at the
Mother Bethel ecumenical service, at Congo Square and at a
program at the African American Museum.
“For
enslaved Africans in Philadelphia we must remember that
many of our African ancestors worshiped traditional
gods, many were Muslims we practiced many different
religions. When I was younger a relative died and they
passed me over the grave, that was one of our African
traditions. That was to protect the child from negative
spirits. We have lost so much of our traditions. We must
get back and study them.” |
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For
many in the audience the Rites of Ancestral Return
tribute was validation for a similar struggle
Philadelphians are waging to honor an African burial
ground and the eight enslaved Africans George Washington
brought with him to Philadelphia when he served as the
nation’s first president. Blockson, who has been an
invaluable resource in the fight to document
African-American history in negotiations with the US
Park Service to get them to build a monument to all
enslaved Africans in the new Liberty Bell pavilion, gave
a detailed history of the contributions of African
people in Colonial Philadelphia. It was a glorious day
to be an African. An Additional Note
The wooden coffins in the photos contain their actual remains. I
attended the service in Philly although I arrived late. |
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Philly had a symbolic reinterment in Washington
(Congo) Square and a lecture program at the African American
Museum. In the ceremony at the sanctuary (historic Mother Bethel
AME Church) the coffins were draped with real Kente Cloth, words
by Dr Molefi Asante, Sonya Sanchez and the pastor Rev. Leah. The
procession photos took place outside as they were preparing to
go to Congo Square, the releasing of the doves was part of
the reinterment ritual signifying the release of their spirits.
The photo by Chester Higgins Sacred Remains is
an actual photo of the bones uncovered at the African
burial ground site in New York.
* * * *
*
The Sacred Remains: American Attitudes Toward Death, 1799-1883
Rest in Peace: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in
Twentieth-Century America
African American Grief (Death, Dying and Bereavement)
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posted October 4, 2003 |
