To build a memorial at the site of the reinterment of thirty-six enslaved Africans/African Americans on George Street in Charleston to serve not only as a memorial for those individuals but also to serve as a memorial to the thousands of enslaved African/African Americans buried in unmarked graves throughout Charleston.
The Project
Background
In the Fall of 2013, a surprising discovery – but also an all-too-common discovery – was made during the foundation excavations for the renovation of the Gaillard Center on the corner of George and Anson Streets in Charleston. One body was discovered and then another and another. In all, thirty-six bodies were disinterred from where they had been buried between 1760 and 1790. They were the remains of enslaved Africans or African Americans, their remains buried in now unmarked sites as is true for literally thousands of individuals in over 80 gravesites that have been identified in Charleston.
Similar discoveries have been made in Charleston for years, but this discovery was different. The Gaillard renovation was a city project and at the time, the Gullah Society, founded in 2012 by Dr. Ade Ofunniyin, a professor at the College of Charleston and the grandson of the iconic blacksmith Philip Simmons, had committed to documenting these gravesites and honoring the individuals buried there. This gravesite was not simply to be noted and then immediately forgotten.
At the request of City of Charleston, the Gullah Society was instrumental in the reinterment in 2019 of the bodies discovered in 2013. A memorial was planned to remind visitors to Charleston and Charlestonians alike of those people who had built this beautiful city. Dr. Ofunniyin’s death delayed that effort, and the subsequent dissolution of the Gullah Society essentially ended the Gullah Society’s involvement in the efforts to build a memorial.
However, the Gullah Society had received three grants from the National Geographic Society to study the remains of the individuals disinterred in 2013, now called the Ancestors. The manner of burial, the gender and age were documented as was the DNA of the Ancestors revealing where in Africa their lineage could be traced. The Anson Street African Burial Project, a successor organization to the Gullah Society, developed an education program. The City of Charleston installed a small plaque at the site of the reburial on George Street promising an appropriate memorial in the future.
The Project
The purpose of the current project is to make all this work come to fruition with a memorial worthy of the site and of the Gullah Ancestors buried there, worthy of Charleston and worthy of the over 80 unmarked gravesites of Africans and African Americans buried before 1865.
The Ancestors were Gullah. The DNA analysis conducted by the University of Pennsylvania was meticulous and traced the Ancestors to west and central Africa. As members of the Gullah Geechee culture, their interment is a marker for the many Gullah Geechee individuals whose graves have been left unmarked. In the words of Victoria Smalls, the Executive Director of the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, a marker at Anson and George will not only be a place of memory, but it will also be “Dare I say, one of the sacred sites of pilgrimage.” This especially so given the location on George Street with the home of the Grimke sisters on East Bay, St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church, the only church in Charleston built by and for enslaved people while still enslaved, across Anson Street, Mother Emanuel nearby on Calhoun Street, another unmarked African American burial site at the west end of George Street and Gadsden Wharf, now the location of the International African American Museum immediately to the east of George Street.
At the end of August 2021, Mayor Tecklenburg of Charleston, invited twenty-four people, some representing specific organizations, others civic leaders to a meeting to discuss the project. Organizations represented included the City of Charleston, the College of Charleston, the International African American Museum, the Anson Street African Burial Ground Project, the Gullah Geechee Heritage Corridor Commission, Spoleto Festival USA, the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Charleston Gaillard Center, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Preservation Society of Charleston and St. John’s Reformed Episcopal Church. Community leader Maxine Smith also convened another group of concerned citizens to discuss a possible memorial. Nigel Redden, the former General Director of Spoleto Festival USA who had recently retired, offered to staff the effort.
The groups agreed to commission the noted sculptor Stephen Hayes to develop a plan for the memorial.
The Memorial
Stephen Hayes has proposed a fountain whose basin will be earth-formed from the earth in which the thirty-six Ancestors were buried. Each of the individuals will be memorialized by a pair of hands extending from the basin, those hands to be cast from living individuals whose age, gender and ethnicity match those of the deceased.
Behind each hand will be an individual jet of water some of which will fall on the hands, the rest into the basin and out back to the earth where the deceased were found. Some hands will hold the scant material possessions buried with the individuals – beads, ceramics, two coins, etc. Stephen’s proposal has met with unanimous enthusiasm.
Site Plan
Steve Dudash, Director of Special Projects, Navy Yard Charleston has volunteered to work on the technical aspects of the project pro bono. Jen Hayes of Thomas & Hutton is the structural engineer, also working on the project pro bono. Other key participants include Jason Kronsberg, Parks Director, City of Charleston, and Edmund Most, Capital Projects, City of Charleston. Evan Brandon of Outdoor Spatial Design is working on the design development and construction documents for the project. The memorial will be located near the vault on George Street in which the remains of the Ancestors have been reinterred. A wrought iron fence will surround the site with benches to allow for quiet contemplation.
Steering Committee
The Project will be led by a group of concerned citizens. The committee will be chaired by Brenda Lauderback who has been involved in many philanthropic activities and sits on a number of corporate boards chairing the board of Denny’s Corporation.
Timeline
The memorial will take approximately a year to build. Community members have been identified whose hands have been cast for the memorial. The resulting molds will finally be cast in bronze. Site preparation can take place simultaneously.