The African Burial Ground Memorial was the destination for a ninth grade social studies field trip on September 25; despite the pope's presence in Manhattan that day, the trip, now an annual event, went smoothly.
The block on which the museum and memorial site are located, between Duane and Reade Streets, was used as a burial ground for both free and enslaved Africans for a century, from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. Covered over and all but forgotten, the burial ground was rediscovered in 1991 when excavations for the foundation of a new federal building began.
The field trip was designed by the social studies department to complement the summer reading assignment for the incoming ninth grade, Laurie Halse Anderson's work of historical fiction, Chains, which focuses on the challenges and dilemmas faced by a 12-year-old enslaved girl in revolutionary era New York City.
At the museum, students watched a short documentary about the site, which is now part of the National Park system and went through the exhibit at their own pace, answering informational and thought questions created by the social studies faculty. At the outdoor memorial site, students were encouraged to take note of and look for meaning in the thoughtfully designed details of the monument and grounds. Students respectfully laid roses on the burial mounds and used their cellphones to begin some reflective journaling, which will be continued in class.
This trip laid some of the groundwork for one of the major themes of the ninth grade social studies curriculum – definitions of liberty and the place of slavery within the debates and battles conducted in the name of that concept.
Lisa Cohen
Dept Chair, Social Studies
