Who Has the Body? Mapping and Preserving the History of African American Cemeteries
Recently, historical attention toward African American burial sites has dramatically increased. The passage of the United States African-American Burial Grounds Preservation Act in 2022, which identifies Black burial grounds and supports documentation and preservation of burial sites, amplified local and regional efforts into a nation-wide preservation project. However, some local circumstances (like in North Carolina) are also driven by active housing expansion which has unveiled enslaved and recently freed Black burial grounds. Now there is a race to document the historical value of these spaces and preserve burial sites. How do we document the unknown? What are the ethical implications of excavation, DNA examination, and repatriation when bodies are endangered? Frazier will discuss how these burial projects impacted her approach to historicizing and documenting “silent stakeholders.”