Slave Cemetery Uncovered

Being born in the segregated south, I remember many things that are no more. Back of the bus, white & colored drinking fountains, lynchings. I am currently reading a biography of Louis Armstrong and what that genius suffered personally, and blacks everywhere suffered, takes me aback.  Especially when I think that all this happened less than a century ago...still does in some places to this day.

A similar burial ground was discovered a few years ago in downtown Manhattan that brought construction of a new skyscraper to a halt for a few weeks.  This is only one more reminder of how close we are to our own tragic, shameful history.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A 19th-century cemetery, believed to hold the remains of slaves, has been uncovered at a former cotton plantation in Florida, archaeologists announced Thursday.
The discovery of six gravesites was made last year at the Kingsley Plantation in Jacksonville, but the announcement was delayed to allow for further research and to alert possible descendants of those buried there. It brought a sense of accomplishment to those who spent years finding the site and a surge of emotions to those whose ancestors were enslaved there.
"The word emotional almost seems not powerful enough," said Johnetta Cole, director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art and a descendant of the Kingsley family. "I wept. This is not ordinary; this is not an everyday experience."
A team led by James Davidson, a University of Florida anthropologist, worked with just two vague century-old leads to find the site, which was described as being adjacent to a giant oak tree. Once Davidson found the graves, a smattering of clues helped determine they were, in fact, apparently those of slaves.
Square-cut nails in the coffins helped pinpoint the fact that they were from the 19th century. Five-hole buttons and brass coat buttons narrowed the time frame even further. And measurements on the skeletal remains indicated they were likely those of Africans rather than Europeans or Native Americans.
None of the materials ever left the grave-sites, though, out of respect for the dead.
"We were not going to exhume anybody, we were not going to collect any material," Davidson said.
The remains include a man who appeared to have died at around age 40, a woman who lived to 60 or older and three children. The age and sex of the sixth body was not determined.

More is here.

And so it goes.
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