­Last week was a significant week for the Gullah Society team, for me personally, and for Charleston as a whole.  On Wednesday, February 27th, the Gullah Society hosted Egungun Tunji at the Cannon Street Arts Center.  “Egungun Tunji” is Yoruba and roughly translates as “Ancestors Rise Again”.  We felt that this was an appropriate title for the continuation of our conversations about how to honor and remember our ancestors though research into their ancestry, the reinterment ceremony and the installation of a memorial.

At a College of Charleston lunchtime talk and at Egungun Tunji, Rodney Leon, architect of the New York African Burial Ground Memorial, described the rediscovery of the African Burial Ground in New York and the various aspects of his memorial design.  Dr. Theodore Schurr and Ms. Raquel Fleskes, genetic anthropologists at the University of Pennsylvania, described the results of DNA research into the ancestry of 78 people of African descent and well as the ongoing ancient DNA analyses for the 36 people uncovered near Anson Street.
 
For me, the most exciting part of the evening was feeling the anticipation and excitement of the many people that came to discover the results of their DNA analysis. These emotions were perfectly encapsulated in the Post & Courier interview of Gullah Society Community Outreach and Education Coordinator, La’Sheia Oubre.  It was wonderful to greet the DNA research participants, who have become increasingly invested in remembering the ancestors through the meaningful connections created by an enhanced understanding of our shared ancestry. 

As La’Sheia described, we are all related and all of our ancestors trace back to Africa.  I don’t know what it feels like to grow up black (or white) in America, but I do know what it feels like to want to belong – to want to find “your people”.  Through the preservation of burial grounds, genealogical and DNA research, we aim to help others connect with people, histories and memories that have been lost through the brutality of enslavement and ongoing racial injustice in this country.

We are blessed with great team that is committed to and passionate about this work.  As a team we continue to think about ways that we can engage the community and how we provide learning materials for school children.  We are looking beyond the reinterment to work towards greater racial equity and reconciliation in Charleston, with the May 4th reburial being an important part of that work. Over the weekend of May 3rd-5th, we are planning a range of activities – including a naming ceremony for the 36 individuals, whose names we do not know, a procession, African drums, singing, dancing, a masquerade and an ecumenical service.  In conversations with Rodney Leon, he emphasized the importance of creating a memorial that is inclusive, participatory, that is anchored in its cultural context, and that re-establishes the burial ground as a sacred space. The week was hopeful, we feel as though we have reached a critical mass of support. 
 
Now is the time for all of us, as a community, to honor, remember and recognize the contributions of these 36 individuals and the many others, whose lives have been obscured by prejudice and discrimination. 

As Gullah Society Director and Founder, Dr. Ade Ofunniyin, encouraged at Egungun Tunji, “We have power! This is our power right here, united we have power!”
 

In a little more than two months, the remains of 36 African-Americans will be reburied in a small patch of ground near George and Anson streets.
Exactly what the May 4 reinternment event should look like and how these individuals may be related to present-day Charlestonions was all up for discussion Wednesday night.
About 100 people gathered in Charleston’s new arts center at 134 Cannon St. for “Egungun Tunji: Ancestors Rise Again!,” the Gullah Society’s most recent event in its ongoing effort to learn more about the lives of the city’s earlier African-Americans and preserve their stories.

What’s clear is that the 36 sets of remains, unearthed by surprise in 2013 during the renovation of the Gaillard Center, have started a broader community conversation that goes well beyond the remains found on the site.
“It’s certainly is a signifier for a bigger effort,” said Scott Watson with Charleston’s Cultural Affairs Department. “It recalls how many countless building sites here that have been disturbed where we didn’t take time to stop and do the archaeology, do the science and pay due respect.”
The conversation Wednesday brought many diverse voices, including architect Rodney Leon, who designed New York’s African Burial Ground National Monument, the oldest and largest known excavated burial ground in North America for both free and enslaved Africans. And it involved Theodore Schurr, a researcher with the University of Pennsylvania’s Anthropology Department.
And it involved dozens of local residents, many of whom received the results from DNA testing done on them recently.

‘The dead have been woke’

The Gullah Society’s effort has brought funding and attention from National Geographic, which featured the project in December and helped pay for research that analyzed not only the DNA from the remains but also from living residents. 

Previous forensic analysis showed those buried at the Gaillard site likely died between 1760 and 1800 and had ancestors who came from Africa. The land was never marked as a burial ground.

Schurr said the approximately 80 residents who volunteered for the DNA testing had a strong African lineage, about 86.5 percent on average.
“It may not come as a surprise, but the majority show quite substantial African ancestry from all sorts of genetic perspectives — material, paternal, DNA markers from both parents,” he said. “There’s some variation of non-African heritage in some, but it’s not usually all that substantial.”
Ragina Scott Saunders learned her DNA reflected a 93 percent concentration from Africa, mostly around the nation of Niger. “I knew Africa,” she said. “I just didn’t know what areas.”
She and Kim Williams Odom of Charleston joked that they might be cousins. Odom’s results also showed a strong concentration from western and central Africa. She said seeing them made her teary-eyed because her grandmother recently passed.
Meanwhile, Schurr and graduate student Raquel Fleskes said they succeeded in extracting DNA from the remains and should have those results soon.
“We hope this is the start of a somewhat larger conversation about these results and what they mean,” Schurr said. “Not many studies like this have been undertaken in the United States.”
Ade Ofunniyin, a College of Charleston anthropologist and Gullah Society founder, said it’s no accident the remains were found at the Gaillard: “The dead have been woke in service of the living.”
“Those bones could have been any of our ancestors,” he added. “And even if they are not our ancestors, they’re bones of ancestors of a city we love so much.”

SCANLONVILLE — When Edward Lee was a child, everybody in the neighborhood knew about the cemetery.

The graves rested beneath the moss-draped oaks that overlooked Molasses Creek, a body of water meant to allow for safe passage of spirits back to Africa.
Even while hunting nearby for turkey or deer, Lee said, there was one rule everyone followed: You don’t hunt in the graveyard.

Today, a federal push is underway to keep the stories of African-American burial grounds like Scanlonville alive. Last month, U.S. Reps. Alma Adams of North Carolina and Donald McEachin of Virginia — two black Democrats from Southern states — introduced the African-American Burial Grounds Network Act.

The proposal calls for the creation of a national database of historic African-American burial grounds as part of the National Park Service. If passed, the legislation would provide federal funding for the voluntary initiatives that research, record and preserve such sites, along with technical support.

The database would be voluntary and require the consent of the property owner to be included in the network. It is unclear how much the undertaking would cost, as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has yet to release its assessment.

Scanlonville’s history would be of interest, something Lee alluded to while unhooking the 20-foot yellow chain that separates the cemetery from the Mount Pleasant regional neighborhood street where half-million-dollar homes surround the site. He recalled what an attorney told him after a judge ruled this cemetery could not be developed.

“This was very unusual that anybody would stand up and fight for this place,” he said, looking out at the old gravestones, the new white crosses and the groups of palms that signify this is a final resting place.

No database of storiesFew know where to look for such sites and even fewer can find the solace they seek as African-American burial grounds face an onslaught of modern threats: physical deterioration, bitter development battles and neglect when descendants move away or die before they can warn the next generation.

“Black people are generally treated as though they are invisible, and the things that were visible have become invisible through gentrification and other means,” said Ade Ofunniyin, founder of the Gullah Society, a nonprofit dedicated to rescuing and preserving neglected African and African-American burial grounds.

“The physical evidence of black people living in Charleston is disappearing quickly,” he said. “All we have are these graves and the voices of those who remain. The stories need to be told.”

No official national record or database currently exists for African-American burial ground locations. No centralized record of African-American burial grounds exists in South Carolina, either.

“I can’t tell you how many people come up and ask me about this,” said Jannie Harriot, vice chairwoman of the S.C. African American Heritage Commission.

The creation of a statewide database of African-American burial grounds is something Harriot said the commission will be discussing at its April meeting.
Harriot said she keeps hearing concerns from community members about the lack of records for abandoned burial grounds and cemeteries. Sometimes these sites are only discovered when construction projects inadvertently disturb the dead.

In Charleston, the remains of 36 anonymous people of African descent were uncovered in 2013 during construction of the Gaillard Center. They will be reburied in a small patch of ground near George and Anson streets this May.