"African Burial Ground: A Trip to The Mother Land on U.S Soil."

Ayana Boudreaux
Freshman Seminar
Post 7

Waking up at three forty-five in the morning just to shower and clothe myself for a trip to New York is not how I wished to start my day off after a long Friday night, but on October 16, 2010 that is exactly how my day began. As I  boarded the bus I prepared myself for a long nap so that I would be well rested once we reached the burial grounds and I forbade anyone to sit next to me taking the seat that I had reserved for my legs to lie upon. [Chuckle] In the back of my mind however, I knew that with a class of more than two hundred students, someone would have had to take a seat beside me. Luckily the guy that sat next to me was a great conversationalist.

As the buses took off for New York my seat mate and I spoke briefly about what we were about to experience. While he was looking to venture off into the streets of the Empire State, I was expecting to see something more along the lines of mummified bodies and extensive research. Too eager to sleep the two of us spoke for hours about our adventure.

Arriving in Manhattan and exiting the bus my Freshman Seminar group walked towards the African Burial Grounds. Once we reached our destination we joined in with the remaining groups from the class in a spiritual libation to our ancestors. When finished we watched a twenty minute movie about the grounds and we observed the museum area. Following that we received a lecture and historical message. Stepping inside of what I believed was a marble pyramid engraved with African Adinkra symbols, I got the chance to experience life on a slave ship. Next we walked towards a statue which was a representation of one form of way African woman dressed. There we spotted young men skateboarding along the grounds. I was outraged and to add insult to injury, as we walked closer one of the guys yelled to his buddy, “Hey hurry up before the HERD comes.” Herd! Do we look like a bunch of cattle to the Caucasian man still?

I believe that much more respect should be given to those grounds. Truly the African Burial Ground was a spiritual uplifting, but I wish that like many of the European museums and grounds dedicated to the founding fathers of this nation, that the African Burial Grounds could have much more to show or view.