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The city of New York votes to make an eighteenth-century Black American burial ground in Manhattan a historical landmark.
1993 (Feb 23)
The city of New York voted to make an eighteenth-century Black American burial ground in Manhattan a historical landmark. The site was first discovered in 1991 during construction of a federal office building. Scientists were eventually called in, and they took away the remains of over four hundred people and thousands of artifacts for closer inspection. Most of the Blacks who had been buried there were believed to have died between 1710 and 1790. In September 1993 the skeletal remains of the Black Americans were turned over to anthropologists at Howard University for further study. Once they have completed their work—which is not expected to be until 1999—the remains are scheduled to be returned to New York City and reburied. Plans are also under way for an Black Burial Ground Museum and Research Center to be built near the site of the historic discovery.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.