New push to expand African Burial Ground memorial
BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and
Congressman Jerrold Nadler announced
the reintroduction of the African Burial
Ground International Memorial Museum
and Education Center Act in Lower Manhattan
on April 1.
They were joined by their colleagues,
Congress Members Carolyn Maloney,
Gregory Meeks, Hakeem Jeffries, Grace
Meng, and Adriano Espaillat, who assembled
outside the African Burial Ground
National Monument, a cemetery located
that is the fi nal resting place of more than
15,000 free and enslaved Africans from the
17th and 18th centuries and the nation’s
earliest and largest African American
cemetery.
Gillibrand announced that the legislation
would expand on the burial ground’s
existing site and create the African Burial
Ground International Memorial Museum
and Education Centers.
The junior senator from New York
recalled that the rediscovery of the burial
ground in 1991 changed the understanding
of the state’s history of enslavement,
serving as a reminder that Americans still
have much to learn about the history and
legacy of slavery.
Congressmembers Meng, Maloney, Nadler, Senator Gillibrand, and
Congressmembers Espaillat, Jeffries, and Meek in front to the African Burial
Ground National Monument.
Its importance is greater than ever, she
explained.
“The museum would create a new venue
where we can grow our understanding of
the true history of our nation, our state, and
at the institution of slavery in the United
States and around the world,” Gillibrand
said. “At this moment in time, where we
are having a reckoning, as a country, on
the justices and inequalities the African
PHOTO BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
American black communities have been
subjected to from the earliest days of our
nation today. This museum and educational
center could not be more important.”
The museum would house a collection
of artifacts and documents and provide
a place to share DNA research tracing
the home and ancestral countries of the
individuals buried at the African Burial
Ground.
It is planned that the museum serves
as a sister site of the National Museum of
African American History and Culture in
Washington DC, hosting complimentary
exhibits and fostering collaboration between
the two museums and other museums
as well as historically black colleges
and Universities.
Nadler, who sponsors the bill in the
House of Representatives, said that he
was proud to reintroduce the legislation
alongside his colleagues Maloney, Meng,
Meeks, Jeffries, and Espaillat, who are cosponsors
of the bill.
He urged that it was vital to pass the
legislation to preserve, protect, and share
America’s history for future generations
and emphasized that while slavery was
a worldwide institution during colonial
times, it still existed in some parts of the
world. Nadler hopes that the museum will
serve as a beacon of freedom and hope
against slavery today in all its forms.
“We cannot successfully fi ght for equality
without a clear understanding of the
history of slavery in this country. The
development of a shared history is not
spontaneous. It takes work, dedication, and
respect to those who write it,” said Nadler,
who also serves as chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee.
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