African Burial Ground Memorial

African Burial Ground National Monument is a memorial on the site where the remains of over 15,000 enslaved and free Africans were buried during the 17th and 18th centuries, discovered during construction excavation in 1991.

The discovery of the burial ground, the largest and oldest known African burial site in North America, fundamentally changed the understanding of slavery in colonial New York. The remains revealed that enslaved Africans comprised up to 40 percent of the colonial population.

The memorial, designed by architect Rodney Leon and dedicated in 2007, features a polished granite monument, a ring of ancestral symbols, and a door of return symbolizing the passage between the world of the living and the ancestors.

419 individuals were exhumed and studied by Howard University researchers before being reinterred in hand-carved wooden coffins during a solemn ceremony in 2003. The research revealed evidence of brutal labor, malnutrition, and violence suffered by the enslaved population.

African Burial Ground National Monument is the most important memorial to the enslaved Africans who built New York City, a sacred site that forces the city to confront the reality that its wealth and power were built on the labor and suffering of enslaved people.