Seacoast History Blog #97
October 17, 2010  

When I started this blog thing a year or two ago, the idea was to be able to post great gobs of short behind-the-scenes bits about local history and culture online quickly. That never happened. The problem with the blog format is that it lends itself to quick, crummy, ephemeral content, whereas my orientation is towards slow, well-researched, crafted writing. I found myself wanting to write the “best  blog,” which is really a conflict in terms. As a result, like many would-be bloggers, gobs of content began piling up in my brain like all those boxes in the first Raiders of the Lost Ark movie. Take two weeks ago, for example, when I attended the reception for the artist who has designed the new African Burying Ground memorial. (Continued below) 

This Web site, if I recall, was among the first media to report the discovery of the coffins found under Chestnut Street in the fall of 2003. I happened to be on the scene just as they were discovered. I’ve spoken up in print and in person about the topic a few times. The topic is almost too emotional to write about. The upshot is that we lost the only African American cemetery in town. The early citizens of Portsmouth managed to build the city on top of it, while simultaneously managing to define about 100 white graveyards and family plots sprinkled around the city. It’s unthinkable, but it happened. And it not only happened, but our ancestors didn’t seem to care. We didn’t seem to care either until historian Valerie Cunningham reminded us where the lost African cemetery was likely to be located. Sure enough, city workers bumped into it right where the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail marker said it was supposed to be. And partly because of the spotlight created by the PBHT, it was impossible to ignore it any longer. I’ve been told, but have yet to substantiate, that human remains were “discovered” on this same spot many times over the last 200 years, but simply ignored. As many as 200 Africans and poor citizens were buried here, estimates suggest, and forgotten over the last two centuries. DNA research has proven that the bodies discovered were of African descent, and many more likely remain under the streets we drive over daily.  People who live in that area are literally living inside a cemetery.  

So this African American Burying Ground Memorial is really a big thing. Members of the Burying Committee have moved forward with dignity and enormous patience. And it has taken a long time to get it to the point where we have a design that everyone likes and wants to move forward on. It was a treat for me to see the designer and sculptor Jerome Meadows of Savannah, GA, showing off his model, and I got to hear him explain the thinking behind its design in the African American Center now located in the Discover Portsmouth Center in what used to be the Children’s Room of the Portsmouth Public Library.  

All this is exciting stuff, and I should have come right back home and posted the pictures on the Web. But I did not. It takes time to upload images from the camera, and to size them, and to write even this stream-of-consciousness type prose, and to post all that online. It’s easier to take the information in, than to condense and format and post it.  

But I’ll try harder to keep pace on the theory that there are people out there who are interested. If I don’t see any hits on these blog pages, then I’ll know I can go back to sitting on my hands.  

The important part here, I understand, is not to write an opus, but to get a few pictures online so those who missed the reception can see what it looked like, and you can visualize the model and see the designer. Most important is that readers of this Web site need to know that this cemetery/ memorial is far from a done deal. I was told that the budget for this memorial park will run over a million dollars. We know the city is not going to pony up that kind of money. We couldn’t get $35,000 the other day to restore an historic fire truck. So this money is going to come from you and me and others who are passionate about the need to tell the story of the burying ground beneath the street, and to make this a sacred place. -- JDR

(c) SeacoastNH.com 2010