Manhattan reburies remains of colonial blacks

NEW YORK – In a ceremony both somber and celebratory, the remains of 419 colonial-era blacks were reburied Saturday in Manhattan a short distance from a former slave market.

“Now we’ve come to the time when mother earth receives again the remains of our departed ancestors,” the Rev. James Forbes Jr. said as some in the crowd hugged and wept on the gray, rainy day.

Most of the remains were placed in seven oversized wooden crypts, with flowers piled atop and around each one. A Yoruba priest gave them a final blessing before the crypts were lowered into the ground.

Four caskets holding the remains of a boy, girl, woman and man also were buried. Their remains had been separated from the others and were honored at ceremonies in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Wilmington, Del., and Newark, N.J., before returning to New York on Friday.

The remains were uncovered in 1991 during construction of a federal office tower in lower Manhattan.

Under pressure from the community, the government abandoned the work and began examining the find. The site turned out to be a 5-acre burial ground that had been closed in 1794 and forgotten. It was the final resting place for an estimated 20,000 people of African descent.

The reinterment ceremony marked the end of a long struggle to have the African burial ground recognized.

Drummers pounded a steady beat and dancers performed while the remains were returned to where they were first buried more than 200 years ago.

“It’s magnificent,” said Ayo Harrington, chairwoman of Friends of the African Burial Ground, an informal advocacy group. “It’s exhilarating and satisfying to my soul.”

Hundreds of people turned out to pay tribute to the slaves and free blacks in the cemetery. The weather was perfect for the event, said the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a civil rights activist.

“It would seem to be incongruous to come to this occasion in bright and radiant sunshine,” Daughtry said.

The ceremony, with its mix of singers, dancers and speakers, was in stark contrast to the hard lives led by the blacks buried there. Nearly half of the 419 sets of remains belong to children.

Among those addressing the crowd were poet Maya Angelou, actresses Phylicia Rashad and Cicely Tyson, and actors Avery Brooks and Delroy Lindo.

“Who will sing their songs, dance their dances and hear their stories?” Lindo asked the crowd.

Many of those attending felt a rush of emotion.

“Two of the feelings that stick out the most are pride and mourning,” said Quitman Archibel, 42, of Rochester, N.Y. “I’m proud to have seen the connection I have with these ancestors, and I feel pain for what they went through.”

Many in the crowd carried red, black and green flags symbolic of Africa as drummers dressed in traditional African kente cloth provided a musical backdrop for the ceremony. The Harlem Boys Choir also performed.

The burial ground, when it was active, was outside the city limits. On Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg noted that the nearby South Street Seaport, now a tourist attraction, was once the site where slaves were auctioned.