LEHMAN COLLEGE–Located in Van Cortlandt Park, along the eastern edge of the Kingsbridge Burial Ground, is a mass grave that was identified in 2019. Inside are bones of young children, men and women, the enslaved Africans who were worked to death on the Van Cortlandt plantation. Of utmost importance to the Van Cortlandt plantation’s day-to-day operations, these individuals were “responsible for its functions and economic gains for over a hundred years,” according to the NYC Parks website.
In unearthing this hidden history, Lehman students bring Black tragedies and accomplishments to the eyes of the world; in doing so, they break the generational cycle of Black stories going unknown and unheard. Audrey Adon, a winner of the Jeanette K. Watson scholarship and the current president of the Students Uplifting Ancestral Spaces club, is one of these student researchers.
“My first encounter with this history in the Bronx was a field trip in middle school. We’d gone to… [tour] Van Cortlandt [and] had gotten to the slave quarters,” she explained. “When I asked about it… they didn’t explain it all… It was the repeated indifference towards this that inspired me to become more involved in the project when the opportunity arose.”
Students Dig In: Unearthing the Hidden History of the Enslaved African Burial Ground
