The National Park Service and the African Burial Ground National Monument, the final resting place for 15,000 free and enslaved New Yorkers, have reached a deal that will allow the site to channel public donations to the monument’s upkeep, which has become a growing concern.
The agreement will help address long-standing maintenance and safety issues that have closed parts of the site at 290 Broadway due to a shortfall in federal funding, according to the office of Rep. Dan Goldman. The New York City Democrat helped the site receive nonprofit status.
Rodney Leon, the president of the African Burial Ground Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit established in support of the burial ground, said in a statement that the change would help “protect and preserve this sacred national legacy.” The deal was announced Thursday.
According to the National Park Service, the site’s function as a burial ground for Africans in New York dates from the 1630s to 1795, and was rediscovered during excavation work in Lower Manhattan in the early 1990s.
The parks service calls the site “the nation’s earliest and largest African burial ground rediscovered in the United States,” but notes that its Ancestral Chamber, Ancestral Libation Court and Spiral Processional Ramp “are temporarily closed due to safety concerns.”
“The Ancestral Chamber is showing signs of stress and must be assessed prior to reopening,” reads the National Parks Service website. “Multiple hairline fractures along the foundation and the apparent shift of some materials have given park officials cause for concern.”
Goldman, who represents Lower Manhattan and part of Brooklyn, called the site “one of the most historically important monuments to Black History in New York,” and said he’d work alongside the foundation to help “preserve the history of free and enslaved Africans in New York.”
Leon, quoted in the Tribeca Citizen, spoke earlier this year on the site’s funding challenges.
“I am hoping to accelerate efforts for repair and maintenance,” said Leon, whose work includes a permanent memorial to the victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade at the United Nations. “It is a challenge, especially with changes in administration and funding priorities at the National Park Service. The superintendent is now in charge of nine or 10 sites. And we are competing with places like the Statue of Liberty.”