Community Engagement and Memorialization

Community Conversations continue to be held at various community venues in and around Charleston, these are free and open to all.  We want to hear what you think are appropriate ways to remember and honor our ancestors buried near Anson Street. Through the community engagement, school and art programs we hope to explore what you would like to see for the memorial.  How does our understanding of the identity of the people buried at this site and those of African descent living in Charleston today affect the reinterment ceremony and the design of a memorial for the reburial site?

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).