Community Engagement and Memorialization

Community Conversations were held at various community venues in and around Charleston between May 2017 and May 2019.  We wanted to hear what participants thought were appropriate ways to remember and honor our ancestors buried near Anson Street.

Robert Behre and Lauren Petracca, with the Charleston Post & Courier, attended our Egungun Tunji: Ancestors Rise Again! event on February 27th. At the event we provided the DNA research participants with their results and Dr. Schurr and Ms. Fleskes discussed the DNA analyses.  Rodney Leon, architect for the New York African Burial ground memorial also described his work. In this Post & Courier video, La'Sheia Oubre reacts as she opens her DNA test results as part of the Anson Street African Burials research project.

In the fall semester of 2018, Professor Nathaniel Walker's students proposed designs for a memorial for the Anson Street burials.  Their designs were exhibited at the Addlestone Library at the College of Charleston and at the City of Charleston's new Cannon Street Arts Center (see below).