Skip to main content

Unmarked: the quest to discover and protect burial sites for the enslaved

In a powerful new documentary, American historians and descendants search for and restore cemeteries and burial grounds for slaves

Just over five miles from where the Robert E Lee monument still stands is the formerly segregated East End cemetery, where African Americans who lived through the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras are buried, many in unmarked graves.

For a century, the Lee monument – commemorating those who upheld slavery – stood tall, polished and revered. It took the murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests for politicians to seriously consider tearing it down. Meanwhile, the gravestones in East End for those people most affected by slavery’s legacy are faded, broken or lost to wildly overgrown weeds that make it impossible for family to even visit.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3eCEAFo

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs