MICHEL MARTIN, host:
I'm Michel Martin. This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.
Just ahead: they wear short shorts and fishnets and they like to hit people for fun. What could it be but roller derby?
But first, more on how cultures collided in the new world. In 1991, construction workers in Manhattan were excavating the foundation of a new federal office building when they came across human remains. They have stumbled upon a burial ground where free and enslaved African-Americans had been buried since the 1700s.
Last Friday, the site was officially dedicated to those who are laid to rest there as the African Burial Ground National Monument. Speaking at the event were some of this country's most prominent African-Americans including writer Maya Angelou.
Mr. MAYA ANGELOU (Poet): Today, it's African-Americans, because the playing field has not been evened. But it could have been Asian Americans. It could be a cemetery for Jewish Americans, or a Muslim, Islamic Americans. It could be a Native American cemetery. It is imperative that each of us knows that we own this country because we've already been paid for. It's imperative.
(Soundbite of applause)
MARTIN: Maya Angelou at Friday's dedication of the African Burial Ground National Monument. Here to talk about the memorial and its significance, we are joined by Howard Dodson, chief of a New York public library, Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture.
Dr. Dodson, thanks so much for speaking with us.
Dr. HOWARD DODSON (Director, Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture): It's a pleasure to be with you. How are you today?
MARTIN: Very well now that I'm speaking to you.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: Speaking of what Dr. Angelou was saying, when the remains were discovered, how did we know that this had been an African burial ground as opposed to a cemetery for Europeans or some other group?
Dr. DODSON: Well, prior to the actual even planning of the site, of the building, they'd actually conducted some preliminary studies and historic studies and looked at historic maps, et cetera. And there were - there was clear indication on the maps that a burial ground, in fact, had been at that location previously, the maps going back to the 17th century. But the assumption was that the burial ground had, in fact, been destroyed. If you look at the area around where the building was constructed, there are courthouses, there are bank buildings, streets of a variety, of every other kind of edifice on top of this site.
And so the assumption was that during the construction of these buildings, it was likely that the burial ground have been destroyed. And so they went ahead with planning for the building.
MARTIN: Some of the remains have been studied, as I understand it, by anthropologists and other researchers. What are some of the things that we are learning about the lives of these people of African descent?
Dr. DODSON: Well, actually, one of the first things that was noted was that upwards of - close to 50 percent of the individuals, of the sample of 419 individuals that were studied that were taken out of the burial grounds out of that site were children aged 12 or under, a rather startling number and certainly nothing that any of us assumed when they started, you know, conducting the research. And this certainly a telling, you know, piece of the story of the African presence in this country that almost 50 percent of those who were born here or brought here didn't survive pass the age of 12.
But beyond that, the most - the clearest thing that came from the study of the remains was the fact that these individuals, A, had been brought here to work and B, they had worked. And the nature of the work that they were involved in had caused, you know, significant physical damage to their bodies, to their structures that everything from the kind of broken bones and other, you know, elements or things that could have affected them to stress fractures caused by carrying weight on their heads for many of the women, et cetera.
Just a variety of these kinds of things that indicated that the work that these individuals were involved in was indeed not just stressful, but indeed the kind of work that seriously debilitates people.
MARTIN: No, there was nothing romantic about it. There was nothing, you know, charming, I think, about it. I think those are (unintelligible)
Dr. DODSON: Absolutely not. The other thing, though, just...
MARTIN: Could I just ask you Dr. Dodson, one thing that I noted was at the size of the burial ground? The original size, nearly seven acres. That's huge. And you pointed out that there were some 400 remains. And I think that's important because I think when Americans think of slavery, we primarily think of it as a southern institution. Is it surprising that people who find out that there was such a significant slave presence in New York?
Dr. DODSON: It's a much larger slave presence. The burial ground, which is seven acres, actually extends from Broadway over to Central Street, which is like the - one of the major government buildings is on that street. And from Chamber Street, which is just a half a block behind city hall over to Duane Street, which is another two blocks over. So it's about five, six square block area. And the 419 bodies were the ones that were removed from the footprint of the building, which is only about a quarter of a block square. So if you think about it for a minute, there are 15 to 20,000 individuals still buried beneath the rest of that - beneath the streets and those courthouses and bank buildings and other buildings there. And that's what makes it such an extraordinary historic find.
MARTIN: The memorial is circular, black and gray granite. It's a map of a globe with West Africa in the center. I wanted to ask what inspired the design of the memorial. And, we only have a couple of minutes left. So I wanted to ask you, Dr. Dobson, what does this memorial mean to you?
Dr. DODSON: Well, the inspiration of it, ultimately, I guess you'll have to speak with the architect, but among the things that he did that sort of gave us confidence, those of us who were involved in evaluating the various options that were presented was that he had, in fact, not only conducted research here but had actually go on to Africa and had done the kind of spiritual journey, which is what was really involved and how do you capture some of the spiritual dimensions of the African past on the continent and bring it into this as part of the lives of these Africans, not African-Americans because this is before the United States is established. How do you bring that into a space such as this?
What the monument means to me, there's two or three things. First, that the 200 years of invisibility of African peoples in New York's formative stage of this development are ended. Second, the monument itself is a tribute to the 15 to 20,000 people that are buried there. But the real tribute would be paid when the millions of African-Americans and people of the United States, who owe a debt to these individuals, come and make a proper kind of pilgrimage to them and pay homage to them at that site.
And, finally, the monument is in granite. It will be there forever and we hope that everyone will come and get to know more about both those individuals, but also about the formative stages of the development of this nation. It was a European and African enterprise. And the African voice, the African pages in that history need to be part of all of our consciousness.
MARTIN: I can't wait to see it.
Howard Dodson is the chief of the New York public library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Thank you so much for speaking with us.
Dr. DODSON: It's my pleasure to be here. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
