The Erasure of Death | African American Burial Grounds cover art

The Erasure of Death | African American Burial Grounds

The Erasure of Death | African American Burial Grounds

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Join host Kristin as The Grim explores African American Burial Grounds and Enslaved Persons Cemeteries throughout the United States—sacred spaces erased by time, neglect, and systemic racism.

This episode uncovers the heartbreaking truth behind America's lost burial grounds: nearly 4 million enslaved people by 1860, yet their final resting places remain largely undocumented, paved over, or forgotten.

Featured Sites & Stories:

  • The New York African Burial Ground—10,000-15,000 souls discovered accidentally in 1991
  • God's Little Acre, Rhode Island, where enslaved artisan Pompe Stevens carved 250 tombstones
  • Arlington National Cemetery's Section 27 and the "freedom names" of formerly enslaved soldiers
  • The Charleston Anson Street African Burial Ground Project and its descendant-led reburial ceremonies

From Colonial New England to the Jim Crow South, discover how the Great Migration left burial grounds vulnerable, why African American benevolent societies created their own cemeteries, and how the African-American Burial Grounds Preservation Act fails descendants today.

Featuring the Gullah Geechee perspective that challenges legal definitions of "abandonment"—because sacred ground remains sacred, whether the state recognizes it or not.

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