Feel It In My Bones; Alternate edit

Please take care. Production of this program has been made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Southern Educational Communications Association.

Dallas, Texas, New York City, two urban giants with a little-known shared history of injustice. In both cities, sacred burial grounds were carelessly destroyed. Thousands of enslaved and freed blacks were robbed of their final resting place. But now there's a second chance to write the wrongs as a new generation emerges to help heal the wounds. It can be done, like the old folks say, I feel it in my bones. In most African traditions, the dead form a powerful link in the chain of life. Our spirits influence both our living descendants and the world of nature.

The ancestors bring messages from the other side to those who will listen. Those who have died have never left. They are in the brightening shadow and in the thickening shadow. The dead are not on the earth. They are in the rustling tree. They are in the groaning woods. They are in the flowing water. They are in the hut. They are in the crowd. The dead are not dead. My first visit to the African burial ground in Manhattan took place months after the bulldozers were gone. There were no open graves, no visible bones. But in the stillness of that winter day, there were voices. Like most African Americans, I know very little about my ancestors. Who were these people? Where in Africa did they live? I know many died in this country enslaved.

This burial ground is a tangible connection to an unknown past. Here in the wind, the bush saw up. It is the ancestors breath. Within the African American cultural tradition, you just don't tamper with the dead. The ancestors will not go for that. They will not rest. I was among the first enslaved Africans brought to what you now call New York over 300 years ago. I worked alongside men and women called Congo and Angola, who like myself were owned by the Dutch West India Company. We were mostly skilled laborers. We could attend church with whites, but in death there was separation. We were forced to bury our dead on the outskirts of town, in an area then called the Negro burial ground.

This is what became of your hallowed ground. No indication remains that your burial ground ever existed. The final resting place for 20,000 of New York's enslaved population was initially covered with landfill, then paved over, built upon and forgotten. Forgotten until the summer of 1991, when construction crews digging the foundation for a 37-story federal building found bones. Here in the wind, the bush saw up. It is the ancestors breath. The breath of ancestors who have not left, who are not under earth, who are not dead. Those who died have never left. They are in the woman's breast, they are in the wailing child, and in the kindling firebrand, the dead are not under earth. The burial ground was special to slaves in New York. White soft and complain about the drumming and noises they heard coming from the burial ground.

There we could momentarily be free from laws that choked us. No more than three blacks were allowed to be together at any one time. Our burials were the exception. So when somebody died, it gave us the chance to be with each other. Of course, that was only at night. By law, we had to bury our dead at night. Varial grounds and cemeteries do have a certain sacredness in the African-American community. The sense that that has been violated by this construction project has been a source of great pain and consternation with large sectors of our community. Months after the bones were initially discovered, the federal government launched an excavation of the plot of land newly called the African burial ground. They wanted to remove the remains as quickly as possible so construction could resume on the government skyscraper.

I don't think that the federal government, that some of the agencies within it know how deep into the soul and into just the general psyche of African-Americans, this issue has penetrated. In meeting rooms from New York to Washington DC, the African-American community waged a battle to stop the government from digging up the remains. Let me underline here my belief that this burial ground, like Ellis Island and hundreds of other places in our city, is a part of the history of all New Yorkists. In the meantime, long lines snaked around the burial site as people stood for hours to get a glimpse of the bones inside. More than 100,000 people signed their names to petitions throughout the city and an effort to preserve and memorialize the site. A 24-hour drum vigil to pay respect to the ancestors drew a crowd of thousands, many more traces of Africa on their backs, and their hearts that was pride and pain.

As we stood above one of the graves that had been opened and saw the skeletal remain, as we stood together, it was a lack of a link, a semistic link that had brought us together, and we reflected that who knows, but that could have been our grandfather, a great-great-grandfather. Who knows, but that we might be brothers. Unrest soul, unrest crying, I felt that, a crying, a crying unbelievable soul. I mean, you know, almost one time I felt like I wanted to just lay my head next to one of the remains.

It was a calling like pulling me in, pulling me closer to this skeletal's head. He wanted to tell me something, and I heard it. Hearing the wind, the bush sob, it is the ancestor's breath. The bones are not in this room on display. They're here to be protected and to be watched over. A room in the gym at New York's Lehman College became the new home for the ancestral remains. The room is called the waiting room. Every Thursday it is open to the public. What I'll do is unwrap the cranium of this burial. This cranium is the cranium, as I said, of the sixth burial identified in the course of the excavation. Members of the community come to express respect and individual ways, in a back corner an altar has been erected.

This woman reads from the Egyptian book of the dead. And that the enemy hands get off of my ancestors. I bless my ancestors, now henceforth and forevermore. When I went into the room in which the remains of the store, I thought about in this storehouse there are 400 people and they're in little drawers. And I didn't know what my reaction would be. But when I saw them neatly taped and numbers written on it, there was some partially there was some feeling, well, maybe this shouldn't be. But on the other hand, I thought, isn't it wonderful that they really are there? I will never be part of an institution that houses my ancestors remains in canisters. Not only did you take them out of their sacred resting place, but then you took them up to a building, a gym no doubt,

and wanted to call it a waiting area, playing symbolic, placing words, no, I could never go there. May the grave dig or not bury me, let him bury my feet, let him leave bare my chest, let my people come and see my face, let them come and look at my eyes. The drum does not beat for joy. Sadness of life, sadness of life sounds the drum. The drum only sounds for sadness of life. In addition to human remains, archaeologists worked to retrieve materials from the burial site. Nearly 600 artifacts were removed, among them coins found in the eye sockets of several burials.

And a musket ball found on a woman's rib. The rib was cracked in three places. When you're looking at artifacts that are, again, this humble, every little thing has to give us a clue. The most common artifacts recovered were shroud pins, used to pin together the white cloth most of the dead were buried in. The discovery of the bones and artifacts has generated a thirst for history. Many see the burial grounds emergence and what can be learned from it as a chance to rewrite the history books. Not all of us were slaves. Some black men and women were free. We own land, had businesses. When the British took over from the Dutch, however, many free blacks lost all they had gained. Some even became slaves again. In 1827, all slaves in New York were officially set free. They started practicing the secret during the early British period.

Cheryl Wilson is an anthropologist with the project. She also conducts historical tours in New York. She's attempting to reclaim memories of African history in the city. I think it's certainly important for black people to know the history because it's knowledge of self. But I think it's important for other people to know the history because it contributes to a complete history of the past. Wilson's tours include a glimpse of Trinity Church and its centuries-old cemetery. We could attend Trinity Church. Of course, we used ladders to get to the loft where we were forced to sit. Obedience to the white race lay at the heart of weekly service. Our marriages were performed by mutual consent only without the blessing of the church. Our babies couldn't be baptized. Our dead couldn't lie in Trinity's graveyard.

Though they tried to crystallize us, whites frequently mentioned that we had no souls and perished as beasts. For some reason, I do have attraction to cemeteries. I see the old colonial cemeteries. I want to walk around. I want to look at the tombstones. I want to see the names and be little inscriptions. For some of us, we can't say that about our own people. We don't have any markers. We don't know here lies John Mingo, or here lies Ann Kango, or here lies Peter Angola. We don't know that. No pointer is an internationally renowned jazz violinist. His visits to the burial ground have changed him. Now that I've had a chance to be involved with my ancestors who walk this same land, who owned it, who built the wall on Wall Street, who widened Broadway over there. You know what I'm saying? I don't feel like a stranger on Wall Street anymore.

I don't feel like a stranger to this concrete because I know that we were here amongst the first. Bones are an often new symbol and traditional African folklore. Many African Americans believe the bones from the burial ground bear a message. It may be that the ancestors' bones are coming up at this time to indicate to us that they are disturbed by what we are doing to each other. But at the same time, and paradoxically, it may be that they are coming up at this time because this is a time of hope. There is a resurrection. I have been singing singing. I have cried bitterly. I'm on my way. How large this world is. Let the ferryman bring his boat on the day of my death. I'll wave with my left hand. I'm on my way. I'm on my way. The boat of death is rocking me. I'm on my way.

I, who have sung you many songs. During my visit to the African burial ground, I heard over and over the refrain. They got no justice in life, nor death. I'd heard that phrase before in Dallas, Texas, at another Black burial ground, Friedman Cemetery. When I first saw it, Friedman Cemetery in no way resembled a graveyard. It looked more like a patchwork quilt made up of dark stains in the ground, accident with brightly colored string. The string outlined row after row of sunken graves. Graves of former slaves and newly freed men, women, and children.

This was a central locality for freed slaves in the entire area. Friedman Cemetery was the burying ground for the earliest Black population in Dallas from the mid-1850s until 1925, but the cemetery was desecrated a number of times to make way for urban growth. In 1872, the Texas Central Railroad came through the burial ground. In the 1940s, construction began on Central Expressway. The highway project took with it more graves. In 1958, the city of Dallas decided to convert what was left of the graveyard into a city park. A few surviving relatives were paid $10 apiece to deed the land to the city. Although by state law, it was illegal to erect playground equipment on top of a burial ground, the site remained a park for nearly 30 years. I really think a travesty was committed on this cemetery in the past. You didn't do it and I didn't do it. It happened generations ago, but somehow we now need to try to write the wrongs of what our forefathers did, and I hope that once and for all that the cemetery will become secure.

Oddly enough, it was the highway again that brought Friedman's cemetery to the surface in 1990. State Highway Department crews doing advance work for the widening of Central Expressway discovered many more graves than early maps had projected. What we needed to do before we could advance the roadway project was to get the graves out of the right of wind and relocate back into the heart of the cemetery. The work has taken nearly four years. Bulldozers begin the job, scraping layers of dirt a little at a time. Crewmembers look for signs that a grave has been uncovered. Once the grave location is revealed, archaeologists complete their work by hand.

Workers usually remove the remains of one grave a day. The bones are then taken to a local morgue for storage. These are the kinds of things we're finding that were placed atop the graves. Treasured objects found with the graves help tell stories of the people buried there. Long forgotten burial customs are being rediscovered. Some black families believe the spirits of the dead were captured within everyday objects. Relatives placed broken dishes over the graves to set the spirits free. Seashells are another common find among the burials. The shells are believed to symbolize water. They're a reminder of Africa. After the Civil War, more than 300 former slaves began new lives of freedom and an area surrounding the place they buried their dead. That place became known as Freedmenstown.

The heart of Freedmenstown lie near the intersection of the north-south-east-west railroads. A lot of us would come in on the trains. Many blacks who came with the railroad as laborers remained in the area to raise our families. Although our community was totally segregated, we were a driving force in the community at large. The skills we possessed helped build a community that later emerged as a strong viable city. And I'm speaking from the community side of it. As president of Black Dallas remembered, Dr. Mamie McKnight has researched the city's earliest black history for years. That organization has worked alongside the State Highway Department during the excavation process. It's important to not just African-Americans, but it's important to this city.

That number one, those persons who gave their lives for this city, be recognized, and certainly it's a hallowed ground as far as we're concerned. And I think, respect for those persons, just goes at the heart of everything that we're doing. But now, at least we know where they are. We even know if they're adults or children because of the size of something green. Some members of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to learn and almost forgotten segment of the city's history. Visitors are always free to watch and learn, but they can never take pictures of bones. It's a question of respect for living descendants. People who go to Friedman Cemetery today won't find the graves of any particular individual. This is the headstone I was telling you all about of Emma McKune. She was born in slave-born in 1855, died in 1903. With each intrusion into the cemetery, tombstones were destroyed. The only one still intact belongs to a woman named Emma McKune.

We know what she died from because we have seen her death certificate, but we just don't know where she's buried out here because this tombstone has been moved. Emma McKune has become assembled to both the community and the professionals who work on the excavation project. And there is no grave under here, so we don't know and we'll probably never know where out here Emma is buried. The Rowan Family Bible is one of the few remaining links in the history of Friedman Cemetery. All of these are buried in frame, except for Doc Rowan and his wife, Nanny. Basically, on the births, all of these are my father's, brothers and sisters. These are Doc Rowan's children. The Bible originally belonged to Doc Rowan, who in his day was called the trustee of the colored people of Dallas. Rowan, along with four other men, paid $350 to buy the land that became Friedman Cemetery.

Willie Rowan is Doc Rowan's grandson. He is the last to carry the family name. We build a concrete road over a cemetery. Whether it be black or white, I still don't understand how that could have happened. And one of the things that bothers me is that that was just totally disrespect for the dead, even though the dead is dead. But there is still some respect that needs to be maintained. Old memories are revived as folks get together once a year to remember and recognize the people who were buried at Friedman Cemetery. Well, now unveil the Dallas landmark or historic landmark marker. You're going to call on the ancestors to be here and to accept what is being done.

In New York at a memorial service there, Ashanti tribesmen spoke of the African cycle of life. Everybody comes to this world. You throw your work hard and one you die. The best the family can do for you is to put you in a very comfortable rest in place. I will probably never know where my ancestors come from or whether I might have a direct link to these particular burial grounds. But I do claim these buried ancestors as my own. Somehow they belong to us all. There is in this world something that surpasses all of the things and sweetness. It is sweeter than honey. It is sweeter than salt. It is sweeter than sugar. It is sweeter than all existing things. This thing is sleep. When you are conquered by sleep, nothing can ever prevent you. Nothing can stop you from sleeping.

When you are conquered by sleep and numerous millions arrive, millions arrive to disturb you, millions will find you. A sleep. Production of this program has been made possible in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Southern Educational Communications Association. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.