A TIMELINE: Moving Towards Permanent Remembrance
Since inception, the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground Project has been a multi-year journey to 'write the forgotten back into history' and engage Hunts Point youth in learning about the history of their neighborhood, their city, and use that lens to take control of current issues and lead to new improved outcomes in the future. Nearly $180,000 in funding has been secured for a permanent memorial. Now it's time to complete the project after all these years. Our motto is to 'Transform Learning About History to Doing Something About History.'
To that end, the project has focused on making sure youth drive the conversation about how to best remember the forgotten in their neighborhood and to seek partners willing to respect and respond to their voice. Below you will see the progress they are making towards ensuring a permanent memorial that speaks for the forgotten! Are you willing to help empower youth through developing educational opportunities here in Hunts Point? Contact us!
To that end, the project has focused on making sure youth drive the conversation about how to best remember the forgotten in their neighborhood and to seek partners willing to respect and respond to their voice. Below you will see the progress they are making towards ensuring a permanent memorial that speaks for the forgotten! Are you willing to help empower youth through developing educational opportunities here in Hunts Point? Contact us!
NYC LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION TO REVIEW HPSBG SITE
Tuesday, NOVEMBER 14, 2023
New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission will decide on the preservation of the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground Site. The notice of public hearing states, "The proposed designation of a New York City park, opened in 1910, containing two surviving colonial-era cemeteries for Hunts Point's early European-descended settler families, and for the African and Indigenous people they enslaved." This preservation status will protect the site and ensure that the site's space informs the present and future understanding of the lasting impacts of enslavement. The pubic can attend the hearing on Tuesday, November 14, 2023, at 9:30 a.m. at 1 Centre Street, 9th Floor, Borough of Manhattan (click for directions). CBS News has reported on this upcoming public hearing as well.
Listening With: Drake Park June 2023 Event
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Listening With: Drake Park was an afternoon of dialogue, reflection and connection with local community members. Developed by Alethea Pace, who is a Civic Practice Partnership Artist in Residence at The Met, the event featured performers Maria Bauman, Aleta Brown, Holiday, and Gabriela Silva, plus invited speakers including Rodrick Bell, Phil Panaritis and Justin Czarka of the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground Project, a work in progress sharing of movement and text and participatory storytelling. Over a shared meal, we gathered as a community to engage in conversation about our collective responsibility to steward this land, honor its legacy and reimagine our futures. Beverly Emers and the team at Bronx Arts Space graciously provided refuge from the rain and hosted the event in their space.
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2019: Manhattan College Community Based Learning Course
During Spring 2019, Adam Arenson, Manhattan College Associate Professor of History and Director of the Urban Studies Program, leads a college course "to learn more about the history of slavery in the Bronx, and to see what this history means for the current residents of these neighborhoods, and for those whose families have roots here. We want to use our research skills as historians to help people learn more about their history and their connections. And we plan to consider what kind of memorial is right for this legacy of slavery, and the enslaved people buried in unmarked graves, in the Bronx and elsewhere."
2018: The Point CDC LEads a Summer INTERnSHIP DESIGN PROGRAM
During Summer 2018, the educational work of the HSPBG project extended to young adults through a collaboration with The Point CDC, which has been a steadfast supporter of the HSPBG project. A.C.T.I.O.N. youth were given the tools to become community organizers, learning methods for collecting survey data to then digitally design and map out proposals for permanent memorials in Drake Park. A.C.T.I.O.N. youth focused on leading the community towards determining, advocating and designing a permanent memorial and general improvement of local parklands, particularly Joseph Rodman Drake Park.
2018: NYC LANDMARKS PRESERVATION REQUEST FOR EVALUATION
The Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground Project has submitted an application to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission! Additionally an application is underway with the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for state recognition and protection.
2017: Archaeology Report released confirmS the Site
In summer 2017 the exhaustive and definitive report was released on the burial ground. "The historical photographic and documentary evidence supports the existence of a slave burial ground historically located on the south side of Old Hunts Point Road across from the family burial ground of the Hunt, Leggett, and Willett families known today as Drake Cemetery." Read the entire archaeology report from the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission or read it directly here on the HPSBG site. Then, join the community Facebook discussion on where do we go from here? Learn more about the findings, including a presentation on the archaeological report.
2017: DEVELOPING A PARK NEEDS-ASSESSMENT For Drake Park
During Spring 2017, elementary grade students engaged in activities in Drake Park that focus on assessing the existing amenities in this local park to then draw up recommendations for park improvements for the site of the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground (HPSBG) project. The needs-assessment culminated in students using graph paper to independently and collaboratively re-design that park based on their recommendations. The results were then shared with NYC Parks through the development of a video that advocates for their improvements. See the video below of the students advocating for their local spaces with governmental agencies.
Drake Park Needs Assessment from Mr Czarka on Vimeo.
2016: STUDENT ARCHAEOLOGISTS DEVELOP GRAVESTONE CENSUS and Memory Quilt
During Spring 2016 students engaged in authentic, hands on archaeological research in collaboration with Jessica S. MacLean, PhD, RPA Archaeologist, resident archaeologist for the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground (HPSBG) Project housed at PS 48. Students conducted an inventory of the gravestones in Drake Park. This included investigating geologic concepts (science), documenting each headstone through photographs (literacy, technology and art), mapping their locations (literacy, mathematics, geography, technology), and transcribing information located on the inscriptions (literacy, art). View the program's curriculum and media. The work of the students is included in the final archeology report released a year later in summer 2017 by the NYC Landmark Preservation Commission that confirms the location of the HPSBG.
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2014: HUNTS POINT HAUNTS TALEBLAZER APP
During summer 2014, "The Point CDC, participants in the Summer Youth Employment Program created a moving, emotional game that honors the African-American and Native American slaves that were buried hundreds of years ago in what is now Drake Park. Youth were motivated to take action through the creation of a game for change, when they observed that white land and slave owners were recognized with well-manicured and marked plots in the park, while the remains of slaves were scattered throughout the park in unmarked graves."
2014: REvised Park Signage INSTALLED
In spring 2014, PS 48 students led a Remember the Forgotten through a flag ceremony, spoken word, student reflections, dance, songs, libation, and a candle ceremony. Remembering the lives and legacy- and advocating for a permanent memorial- together. This is what it means to write the forgotten back into history, our collective history. The ceremony also unveiled the revised NYC Parks signage that finally acknowledges the lives and location of the obliterated graves of the enslaved.