File #: Res 0835-2003    Version: * Name: Create a magnificent, state-of-the-art, memorial museum complex on the African-American Burial Grounds near City Hall.
Type: Resolution Status: Filed
Committee: Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Intergroup Relations
On agenda: 4/30/2003
Enactment date: Law number:
Title: Resolution supporting the efforts to create a magnificent, state-of-the-art, memorial museum complex on the African-American Burial Grounds near City Hall.
Sponsors: Margarita Lopez, Yvette D. Clarke, Leroy G. Comrie, Jr., Lewis A. Fidler, Helen D. Foster, Robert Jackson, G. Oliver Koppell, Bill Perkins, Christine C. Quinn, Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Joel Rivera, James Sanders, Jr., Larry B. Seabrook, Albert Vann
Council Member Sponsors: 14
Res. No. 835 Title Resolution supporting the efforts to create a magnificent, state-of-the-art, memorial museum complex on the African-American Burial Grounds near City Hall. Body By Council Members Lopez, Clarke, Comrie, Fidler, Foster, Jackson, Koppell, Perkins, Quinn, Recchia, Rivera, Sanders, Seabrook and Vann Whereas, In May 1991, during excavations for a federal office building near Broadway and Duane Street, in Manhattan, contractors unearthed a Colonial-era African Burial Ground; and Whereas, The African Burial Ground is believed to be the oldest and largest known Colonial-era cemetery used to bury African-Americans, encompassing five to six acres of lower Manhattan, including City Hall Park, and holding the remains of more than 20,000 African-Americans; and Whereas, The human remains of approximately 400 men, women and children were found at the African Burial Ground, 92% of which were individuals of African-American ancestry; and Whereas, According to reports, it appears that 40% of the human remains found at the African Burial Ground were of children, from infancy to 12 years of age; and Whereas, In addition to the human remains, there were approximately 560 artifacts from the burials, including buttons, copper alloy rings, coins, glass beads and 500 shroud pins that were used to hold in place the shroud sheets of the people buried there; and Whereas, The human remains unearthed at the African Burial Ground were taken in 1993 to the research facilities of Howard University in Washington D.C., to undergo intensive analysis and where they still remain today; and Whereas, The site of the African Burial Ground has been designated as a National Historic Landmark, a designation that will help preserve an important legacy of African-American history and culture in New York; and Whereas, The United States General Services Administration is the agency responsible for the human remains and artifacts found at the African Burial Ground and is also the agency overseeing the African Burial Ground Project, a project that is to culminate with the erection of a permanent memorial at the site; and Whereas, Numerous elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, New York Democratic Senate Leader David Paterson and Council Member Charles Barron, have launched campaigns in support of the initiative to build a magnificent, state-of-the-art African Burial Ground memorial museum complex at the site; now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York supports the efforts to create a magnificent, state-of-the-art, memorial museum complex on the African-American Burial Grounds near City Hall. Body LS# 2140 RA 4/24/2003 H:/word/resolutions/lopez/ls#2140 |1013| |1013|