Our Time PressThe Local Paper with the Global View

Dr. Warren R.  Perry
Early Resistance
The first African captives arrived in Dutch New Amsterdam in 1626 from West and Central Africa and later from Caribbean plantations. Due to constant conflicts with Native Americans, the Dutch created a buffer zone for themselves by granting Africans “half-freedoms” and small parcels of farmland outside the city walls about 1643.
Since the ABG is located in this area, Africans may have begun burying their dead there soon thereafter, although as yet there is no conclusive documentary evidence of this. The marginal spatial location and the respective marginal social positions of Natives and Africans meant that their settlements were likely locales for intercultural social and economic relations (Foote et al. 1993; Taylor 1992).

When the British colonized New Amsterdam in 1664, the 700-plus Africans constituted 40 percent of the population. This percentage was greater than in any other English settlement except Charleston, South Carolina, and more than was found in any northern settlement. The British revoked African half-freedoms, instituted harsher laws, confiscated African lands and imported more Africans for sale to the south.
There were a number of insurrections by Africans in this area during the 18th century, and the highest proportion of escapees with a greater likelihood of success than elsewhere on the continent (White 1995). Indeed, individuals allegedly involved in these revolts were executed at the ABG (Barto 1991; Will 1991). New York gradually emancipated Africans from 1799 to 1827, but census and court records indicate that slavery continued at least until the 1860s (Jaffe 1995).
The ABG is the oldest (late 1600s to 1796) and largest (five to six acres) African descendant cemetery excavated in North America to date. Situated near the banks of the Collect Pond, the ABG not only provided privacy but its location near water was in keeping with the common central African practice of associating cemeteries and bodies of water (Foote et al. 1993; Thompson 1984).
After 1750, several noxious chemical
industries desecrated the ABG by disposing of their wastes there; medical students at New York Hospital also stole corpses for dissection. During the ABG occupation, Africans seem to have controlled their own funerals, mortuary and burial practices, but not without resistance (Blakey 1997; Foote et al. 1993; Harrington 1993; Jamieson 1995).
Furthermore, only during funerals were Africans permitted outside after sunset and to gather in unsupervised groups larger than three persons. In 1731, the British sought to curb African subversive activity by passing laws requiring daytime burials with limited attendance. Palls (the cloth used to cover a casket during the funeral and procession to the grave site) and pallbearers were also banned at African funerals (Epperson 1997). These laws suggest that the British suspected that African funerals were used to mask insurgent activity.
Recent Struggles
Today, the ABG is located under some of the most valuable real estate in the world. It is estimated that from 10,000 to 20,000 first-generation African- Americans were buried in the ABG. Since only 14,000 square feet were excavated, most of those interred remain beneath the city. In 1989, the GSA sought to purchase a block of land from New York City. The plan was to erect a $276 million federal office building in lower Manhattan. Documentary research conducted for the GSA by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) indicated the
presence of a “Negroes Burying Ground” on the proposed building site. In 1991,the GSA, as mandated by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, contracted Historic Conservation and Interpretation (HCI), an archaeology consultant firm, to begin fieldwork. The study of the human remains was contracted to the Metropolitan Forensic Team (MFAT) from Lehman College.
As more human remains were uncovered, GSA pressured HCI and MFAT to comply with the original one-year construction schedule (Epperson 1997; Harrington 1993, 1996). Meanwhile, the descendant community held meetings, religious observances, vigils and protests at the ABG (Blakey 1997).
Since the excavations began without any significant community consultation or participation as to the treatment of the cemetery-as required by the mandate of scientific requirements for the preservation of the site’s history-there was immediate and often volatile reactions to the excavations by the African descendant community (see the Kutz
video series for an account of these events).
In 1991 burials were disturbed by construction workers, further alarming the African descendant community. Community persons who were monitoring the excavations and had seen the remains at Lehman College complained about the way the skeletons were being conserved. Problems included remains wrapped in newspaper under improper environmental conditions and inadequately stored on top of each other (La Roche and Blakey 1996).
The descendant community condemned this behavior as disrespectful, arrogant and insensitive. Their encounter with contract archaeology made it clear that the few African- American archaeologists who exist were never consulted or involved in the ABG research in any substantive way. It also became clear that consulting firms reap huge profits from studying African -Americans and strongly influence how African- Americans are historically defined. These were major issues of concern and contention for the African descendant community (LaRoche and Blakey 1996).
Since MFAT and HCI failed to produce a timely and comprehensive research design, and had treated the remains unscientifically and disrespectfully, the descendant community demanded that the remains be placed under the care of Michael Blakey, one of the few African-American biological anthropologists in the United States. Blakey, who is a professor of anthropology at Howard University in Washington, DC, was concerned that HCI and MFAT had no experience in African or African- American history, cultures or skeletal biology. He was also aware that when archaeologists used construction equipment to remove the earth down to the burial outline, they had already destroyed artifacts that Africans customarily placed atop their graves and coffins (Satchel 1997).
The descendant community, cognizant of the ignorant portrayals of African diasporic history, recognized that archaeological interpretation is an active and subjective struggle between contending versions of history that demands political engagement (Gathercole and Lowenthal 1994; Schmidt and Patterson 1995). To insure that the spiritual, cultural and inspirational significance of the site and its contents were subject to African-centered
paradigms and scholarship, they demanded incorporation of African descendant voices and histories (La Roche and Blakey 1996). They insisted that those working on the project have a knowledge of and respect for African diasporic studies and a commitment to their struggle to reclaim their past. For the descendant community, the skeletal remains and the ancestral possessions are the only concrete material evidence of the lives of this first
generation of African- Americans in New York City. As such, they constitute powerful links to a shared African past.
In 1992, David Dinkins, New York City’s first African- American mayor, and U.S. Rep. Gus Savage of Illinois, who chaired the House Committee for Building Funds, were able to establish an advisory committee on the project, halt the excavation and close down the site. At the request of the African descendant community, New York State Senator David Paterson, who is also African- American, formed an oversight task force for organizing
various forms of political activity around the ABG (Howson 1992). The descendant community continued to press for the involvement of African American scholars in directing the research, analysis and interpretation.
In 1993, Howard University gained control over the research project and, along with John Milner Associates (JMA), another contract archaeology firm, submitted a more comprehensive research design to ACHP that incorporated the concerns and desires of the descendant community. The archaeological materials were placed in the Foley Square Lab under JMA, while the 400-plus human remains were transferred to the Cobb Biological Anthropology Laboratory at Howard University. Pageantry and celebration accompanied the caravan of remains from New York to Washington, DC, with stops at historically significant African-American churches in several cities along the way. The transfer culminated in a ceremony entitled, “The Ties That Bind” at Howard University.
The descendant community and its allies were in evidence throughout the transfer celebration. Representatives from the African- American community, the U.S. Muslim community, the Native American community, and from the Akan in Ghana were all in attendance at Howard. In 1994, African chiefs from Ghana returned to Howard on a
tour of fihankra, a movement of unity that involves prayers and rituals for forgiveness to the ancestors to atone for colonial-era involvement in the trade of African captives.
Although I have spoken of the descendant community throughout, there is, of course, no homogenous African descendant community; this entity is actually multidimensional and ideologically heterogenous. Throughout the struggle around the ABG, however, all segments of the African descendant community and their allies were and continue to be involved. There continues to be a consensus that the site, the human remains, the artifacts and their interpretation must be controlled by the descendant community.
Current Research Project
The current scientific project constitutes yet another dimension of the struggle for control of the ABG. We seek to illuminate the impact of African captivity upon the lives of our ancestors and their living descendants, and to reconstruct knowledge of their origins and identities that were deliberately distorted in the effort to bolster the identity of Euro-Americans at the expense of African- Americans (Blakey 1997). As scientific director of the African Burial Ground Project, Mi chael Blakey has brought together a national and international research team of scholars from Africa and the US who are concerned with creating alternative histories. The ABG Project has evolved into a multi-disciplinary scientific effort comprised of complementary natural and social science teams with expertise in the African diaspora. These include: molecular genetics, bone chemistry, skeletal biology, history and archaeology (African and African- American), ethnology, conservation and African art history. This collaborative effort has global and universal implications, transcending any particular discipline or the interests of any one segment of the descendant community.
These organizational changes have resulted in the selection of four basic research questions to guide our scientific analyses. They are relevant both for activist scholars and the descendant community:
1) What are the cultural and geographical roots of the individuals interred in the African Burial Ground?
2) What was the physical quality of life for Africans enslaved in New York City during the colonial period and how was it different from the quality of life in their African homeland?
3) What biological characteristics and cultural traditions remained unchanged and which were transformed during the creation of African-American society and culture?
        4)    What were the modes of resistance and how were they creatively reconfigured and used to resist oppression and to forge a new African- American culture?
In addition to the scientific teams, the ABG has an Office of Public Education and Interpretation of the African Burial Ground Project (OPEI), directed by Dr. Sherrill Wilson. OPEI’s primary roles are to educate and inform the public of ABG project events, to assure public access to the site, the skeletal and artifactual remains, and to allow appropriate cultural ceremonies to commemorate the ancestors. It also provides community involvement/education activities such as educators’ symposia, laboratory tours and two newsletters that updates the public on the research and introduce archaeology, anthropology and conservation to children and adults.
Conclusion
New York City’s ABG Project is a case of archaeology as community service. It emerged from a protracted struggle over control of the ABG and its products between an organized descendant community and its allies, and the GSA and archaeology consultant firms. This struggle has resulted in an increased awareness of the disciplines of anthropology and archaeology within the African descendant community. It has produced a public education program that facilitates a reciprocal dialogue between researchers and the general public, maximizing the interpretive potential of the archaeological record and creating an historical consciousness that challenges the distortions of Eurocentric history (Singleton 1995).
Through this struggle, the descendant community and its allies have successfully achieved the incorporation of African- American scholars in the creation and maintenance of a research design and agenda that establishes a prominent role for historically under-represented African- Americans in the analysis and interpretation of an internationally renowned archaeological site (Mathis 1997).
By taking moral responsibility for the spiritual and physical control of the site, the descendant community seized intellectual power-forcing changes in the composition and direction of the professional leadership of the project (La Roche and Blakey 1996). The original, ancestral ABG community and the modern descendant community have used this sacred social space to resist and to honor their African heritage in spite of institutionalized racist disrespect. The struggle for the proper treatment of the ABG reaffirms its significance in the past and gives the site continued significance in the present; it is an important part in the legacy of struggle to control and interpret the African past.
 (Entire article with references available at: http://www.stpt.usf.edu/~jsokolov/burialgr.htm)

Herb Boyd
In the early eighteenth century, when the African Burial Ground was still an active cemetery, only a dozen blacks were permitted in funeral processions of at graveside services.  On Saturday, October 4, 2003, some 300 years later, a countless number of African Americans and others assembled at the site to rebury these ancestors who had been torn from their graves in May of 1991.
 Since the excavation at the site in lower Manhattan, not too far from City Hall, the human remains and numerous artifacts had undergone all sorts of forensic and scientific tests.  They had also been the source of much turmoil and controversy, as community activists challenged the jurisdiction of the U.S. general Services Administration (GSA) over the ancestral remains.
Some of that derision still simmered during the weeklong celebration launched in the nation’s capital where the remains, or at least symbolic four crypts, began the 6-city journey back to the final resting place, including stops in Baltimore, Delaware, Philadelphia and Newark. Under threatening skies and a constant drizzle, the remains of 419 African captives and free Blacks were lowered into massive crypts, “never to be disturbed again,” a voice in the crowd muttered.
 The remains were reinterred at the heart of a five-acre plot that may have been a cemetery of some 20,000 bodies, historians estimate, making it not only the oldest African American cemetery in the nation, but the largest of the African presence on the island in 1625 when it was called New Amsterdam and under Dutch control.  It was mainly the uncompensated labor of these early African captives that leveled the forest, built the piers, turned Native American trails into roads, and erected the homes and structured what would later grow into skyscrapers.
 “In 1664, the English conquered the Dutch colony, and New Amsterdam became New York,” Schomburg Center’s research coordinator Christopher Moore wrote in eh event’s program.  “The English imported strict laws regarding slavery and rescinded many rights for free blacks, including the right to own land.  During his period New York’s African labor force, primarily skilled and semiskilled and mostly enslaved – worked as carpenters, blacksmiths, printers, sailors, dock loaders, tailors, seamstresses, bakers and servants.”  Indentured African labor even built the “wall” (from which the vicinity derives its name) that stretched from river to river to protect the settlers.
When the boat docked on Friday, after completing the journey from Jersey City, NJ, the symbolic remains were brought to shore, near the same spot a few of the African captives may have landed centuries ago.  It was at or near this site that the city’s official slave market operated from 1711 to 1762.  Undoubtedly, this spot was major port during the Atlantic slave trade. During the festivities, which were cosponsored by the Schomburg Center and the GSA, many participants were stunned to learn that New York had more African captive than any other colony in the country except for Charleston, South Carolina.
Another indication of the large population of African captives in the state and the city were the number of insurrections that mortified the white residents.  A year after the slave market was established, an uprising rocked the region.  There were widespread acts of arson the men and women in bondage south to burn their way to freedom.  Alerted in time, the city’s militia quickly snuffed out the rebellion, though there were several casualties on both sides.  “The city authorities enacted a law that same year which empowered any three justices and five freeholder to invoke the death penalty without trial by jury upon any slave suspected of conspiring to bring about his freedom, James Allen noted in his boo, “The Negro in New York.”
A generation later, a much large and organized revolt erupted in 1741.  This time sympathetic whites joined the African captives, including white women.  The plan included burying of the local fort, the residences in eh area, and massacring the white slave holders.  One of the white women involved, believing she had been betrayed by her black lover, confessed to the outbreak of arson an named her cohorts.  Fourteen black men were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one were banished to other slave colonies.  . Four whites were also executed and a number of others were forced into exile of their participation in the aborted rebellion.
According to one historian, the whites involved in the revolt were buried along with the blacks that were executed, thereby answering the bewildering question of white skeletal remains in the African Burial Ground.  (Herb Boyd’s coverage of the New York commemorative event continues in the “Ancestral Presence” Supplement section.)

The African Burial Ground Memorial Site at Duane and Elk Streets is the most important landmark in the history of the origins of Early America under Colonial rule.  
The Memorial contains 419 coffins resting beneath approximately 600 square feet of ground.  And they, in turn, hold the remains of men, women and mostly children who were “worked to death” as they cleared the trees, dug the ditches, built the roads and administered to the daily labor needs of  the first illegal aliens – the colonists along the Atlantic coast and inland.
Those remains were unearthed in May 1991  by construction workers preparing to build a federal office tower at Broadway and Duane Streets.  They are the sisters and brothers to more than 20,000 other 18th-century Africans buried in 5 acres of graveyard lying beneath what is now the Financial Capital of the world.
“The African Burial Ground Memorial Site calls into question the validity of historical literature that attempted to regionalize enslavement primarily within the U.S. South,” notes press materials of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
 The Site acknowledges the neglected history of slavery in early New York and the city’s role as a major slave port.  Throughout the 1700’s, New York City had one of the largest slave populations in colonial America – second only to South Carolina.
Even more truths were uncovered by Howard University scientists, biologists, archaeologists and researchers (See Dr. Warren Perry’s essay on PG. 11).  The remains, sent to Howard in 1993 upon the insistence of community  groups, revealed evidence of the unrelenting brutalities faced by the Ancestors at every hour.    This year, Howard University’s examination of the remains and artifacts was completed, thus allowing the reinterment process to commence. The six-city, five-day Rites of Ancestral Return led by the Schomburg Center commemorated the journey of the Ancestors’ remains back to their “resting place” in Lower Manhattan. 
Departing from Howard University on September 30, the “bones” travelled to Baltimore, MD; Wilmington, DE; Philadelphia, PA; Newark, NJ and Jersey City.  They arrived in New York by flotilla on October 3 at Pier 11, the site of the old slave market.  An exterior memorial and interpretive center at the Burial Ground Memorial Site are scheduled for completion in 2005, and reports on the 12-year studies are expected to roll out over a period of two years beginning, this month.
Meanwhile, Our Time Press is providing a color-supplement for its readers which tells the story of the Rites of Ancestral Return through the eyes, voices and texts of those who experienced the procession, and those who have lived it since 1991.   Ten thousand copies -30% of our circulation – will include supplements.  Award-winning journalist Herb Boyd’s story below,  Inez Barron’s View on page 14 and Yvette Moore’s coverage on page 15 introduce the “Ancestral Presence” supplement.  BG

A new Brooklyn resident remarked that Brooklyn does have a thriving black business community.  He says his previous home, The Bronx, does not have much in the way of “blacks going for themselves.”  That’s true: Brooklyn has black shop owners.  Considering the holidays are upon us, it behooves us to patronize our black businesses. 

 
Though small, these shops burst with great merchandise.  Zawadi Gift Shop is one example.  Located at 519 Atlantic Avenue, Zawadi calls to mind a well-laid out Grandma’s attic.  To the right at entry is a glass display case of Afrocentric jewelry featuring much silver and amber.  Walking farther along the clear narrow path one sees black dolls of all makes.  If black dolls are what you crave, then Zawadi has some dolls that will satisfy you.  In the far back are the quintessential goods for an Afrocentric wedding: crystal glasses and vases that are engraved with Adrinkra symbols, blankets, albums, and invitations.  Zawadi’s merchandise line also includes gift cards, fancy pens, health & beauty items and statues.  Zawadi Gift Shop is owned by Lora, Lois, and Leonette.  No, they aren’t blood sisters but they are sisters in sync.  Last words on Zawadi: it’s the Africana collector’s paradise.
Just a few doors away from Zawadi sits Lewis Gallery (525 Atlantic Avenue).  This lithograph and framing enterprise entreats pedestrians to have a look inside with stuffed teen girl dolls literally hanging around the door.  Business is conducted on three levels.  The ground floor has lithographs mounted on the wall, display racks for greeting cards and books.  A large table is used to rest framed lithographs while customers look at other items in the shop.  The lower level is a smaller room where large and small stuffed dolls are found.  This room also contains a selection of lithographs and photographs.  They are Afrocentric themes, whether abstract or still shots.  The upper room above the cash register is the workshop where the framing occurs.  While the shopkeepers didn’t reveal their names they did offer me some of the food that they munched.
One block away from Zawadi Gift Shop and Lewis Gallery is Southern Comforts Holistic Boutique and Wellness Center (483 Atlantic Avenue).  The owner, Nettie Paisley, was arranging the spacious back room for a singing engagement but stopped to explain the business model.  Southern Comforts is laid out with air, light, and walking space in mind.  The place is quiet and lightly scented by the essential oils, perfumes and cosmetics that are on sale.  Ms. Paisley explains that the makeup bolsters women’s self-esteem.  To relax and distress customers, Tierra Paisley, licensed cosmetologist, does herbal facials, eyebrows, and applies makeup.  Nettie Paisley is a Reiki practitioner.  She explained that the back-room is also used for reflexology, massage, Reiki therapy and belly-dancing classes.  Other items for sale include candles, handcrafted soap and crystals.
Fulton Street is another place to shop black.  If this is the season of giving, then 4W Circle of Art and Enterprise (704 Fulton Street) is the store to visit.  4W Circle’s motto is “.more than just a store, an experience in Ujamaa.”  By this statement, Selma Jackson established the store to be an incubator of African entrepreneurs.  The space actually holds at least four businesses at any given season.  The merchandise complements the other businesses’, giving off a seamless offering of exotic must-have goods.  4W Circle features home d‚cor and gift items, artistic hair accessories, jewelry, clothes and footwear.

By Tom Hayden, AlterNet
Editor’s Note: Tom Hayden is reporting for AlterNet from the Free Trade Area of  the Americas conference in Miami.
MIAMI, Friday 8:21pm EST – The police force continued operating with the brains  and appetite of a carnivorous shark today as city officials kept demonstrating “the Miami model” of suppression even as protestors and trade  ministers were leaving the city in droves.
At a Friday afternoon press conference, Thea Lee, the chief international economist of the AFL-CIO, spoke of feeling terrified Thursday as police fired  pepper gas and plastic bullets at peaceful marchers.
Other labor leaders,  including AFL-CIO president John Sweeney expressed “outrage” over the police  blocking of a permitted gathering, and cited specific abuses such as a union  retiree being denied necessary medication after an arbitrary arrest.
Global Exchange co-founder Medea Benjamin and others were pulled over Thursday  night by a dozen officers who pointed guns at them. The Sierra Club’s  Washington D.C. advocate, Dan Seligman, also described officers holding a  weapon to his head and that of another colleague.
Mark Rand, coordinator of a  group of foundation funders, displayed a large bluish bruise on his back leg  from a rubber bullet.
When 100 protestors ventured to the Dade County jail today to speak out against  yesterday’s arrests and detentions of some 145 people, a third on felonies, the  same cycle of avoidable suppression they were describing unfolded yet again.
David Solnit, one of the founders of the Seattle movement, attributed the harsh  police measures to Miami’s character as a center of “vulgar capitalism.” Unlike  other cities, where authorities may appear to assimilate dissent for political  reasons, he said, Miami has attempted to sweep it away as a foreign curse. AFL- CIO leader Ron Judd speculated that the police suppression deflected public  attention from working-class trade issues, while Medea Benjamin accused  authorities of “trying to get the people of this city and county used to this militaristic model” instead of the relatively benign model of policing used at Cancun only two months ago.
I came to Miami with eight students from Harvard University, where I have been  teaching a study group on social movements this semester. They carried with  them questionnaires to sample the opinions of this new generation of  protestors, and received a first-hand education in police suppression today.  After the press conference outside the county jail, about 200 young people  marched 100 yards, stopping in a parking lot across a street from several  hundred heavily equippedpolice officers.
Negotiations between a police commander and activist lawyers produced peaceful  coexistence for an hour late in the afternoon.  There were high spirits, even  humor, among the protestors who invented chants like “There ain’t no riot here,  take off that stupid gear” and songs like “We all live in a failed democracy.”
The protest could easily have been contained by a handful of officers, or might  have simply faded as the day ended. Instead, at  pproximately 5pm, the  commanding officer summoned the activist lawyers to announce that those  milling, waiting or sitting in the parking lot had become an “unlawful  assembly” with three minutes to disperse. In addition, he said with a straight  face, there was “intelligence” that some in the crowd had rocks. There was no  evidence shared with regard to this secret intelligence and no rocks were seen  in the events that followed.
Instead of resisting, the crowd began dispersing along 14th Street, the only  egress route available. With the Harvard students, I was among the last to  leave, along with camerawoman Ana Nogueria and reporter Jeremy Scahill from  Democracy Now! Crossing a driveway I met David Solnit again, who had decided  not to take it any more.
Solnit and six others sat down suddenly on the sidewalk, holding their hands up  in V-signs. A phalanx of 25 police closed in on them as we took photographs and  notes from a few feet away. In moments the seven on the sidewalk were  handcuffed and led away. More police were swarming everywhere now, overwhelming  the remaining protestors by 10-to-one.
One block away, the dispersing crowd was walking backwards as more police marched on them with helmet visors down and guns and clubs drawn. By now five  of my students had joined this retreating witness, all holding their hands over  their heads and chanting “We are dispersing”
again and again. How could the police not notice how young they were, how utterly unthreatening,  how innocent?
I moved alongside the advancing and retreating lines to take a photograph when  I noticed that a policeman was aiming a shotgun straight at my chest. Fear  leaped in me, then he pointed the weapon down. But a moment later he was  looking down the barrel at me again. I was
holding a camera, notebook and pen.  Suddenly I found myself asking him, “Are you really pointing that f—ing gun  at me?”
Nothing happened, and I turned back to look for the students. They were on the  public sidewalk, but by now more police had arrived to prevent them from  walking any further.
The last I saw of them – Anne Beckett, Maddy Elfenbein, Jordan Bar Am, Rachel  Bloomekatz and Toussaint Losier, all undergraduates – their hands were still up  as they were swallowed up by the black-and-brown uniformed horde. When they  were on the ground, one officer added a final squirt of pepper spray. How brave  they look, I added to myself.
Two of my other students avoided arrest by happening to turn in another direction and, minutes later, Touissant, a tall African American with dreds and  a video camera, magically walked free because the police were too busy with  their already downed dissidents.
Police subsequently informed the larger world that a mob of menacing protestors  had disobeyed orders to dissolve an unlawful assembly and were treated  accordingly. In truth they may have radicalized the next generation of America’s future  leaders.