African Burial Ground National Monument
New York, New York, United States
The rediscovered seventeenth- and eighteenth-century burial ground of free and enslaved Africans in lower Manhattan, now a federal monument where annual libation, drum, and naming ceremonies continue.
In 1991, excavation for a federal office tower in lower Manhattan uncovered the burial ground used by free and enslaved Africans from the 1690s through 1794, a site holding the remains of over four hundred people and, by estimate, more than ten thousand burials. The community response, led by Black New Yorkers, halted the excavation, reclaimed the ancestors, and reshaped the federal project into a national monument with a memorial and an education center.
The practice here is alive: annual commemoration ceremonies with drum, libation, and the naming of the dead, a homegoing performed in public on federal ground. It is the most consequential urban ancestral site in America, and the etiquette of the place is set by that living ceremony.
Visiting
290 Broadway, NYC; the outdoor memorial is open daily, the visitor center weekdays. See the NPS site.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Burial_Ground.jpg), CC BY-SA.
Associated traditions & practices
Traditions from this region
Traditions historically rooted in this region — offered as background context, not as a claim about this particular place.
Visitor stories