Important issues
kept alive at the
African Burial Ground

dding insult to injury. That’s how it felt to many Black New Yorkers when the General Services Administration named the federal building at 290 Broadway in lower Manhattan after the late New York Congressman Ted Weiss. Instead, it would have been so natural and right to have named this office tower, which sits on the site of the African Burial Ground, after a person of African ancestry to reflect the estimated 20,000 enslaved and free Blacks buried in this Civil War-era cemetery.

And it isn’t that anyone bears bad feelings toward Ted Weiss; not at all. Weiss, who fled Nazi Germany when he was 11, was among the nation's first elected officials to focus attention on funding for AIDS research, as well as being a leader in addressing the needs of the homeless and a strong supporter of human rights worldwide.

Stated Rev. Herbert Daughtry, senior minister of Brooklyn’s House of the Lord Church and long time activist, "I remember Congressman Weiss, and he was a fine man. But I believe that even he wouldn't want this in his name and must be crying out from his grave, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ That’s why we always refer to the building as the Frederick Douglass Building, calling it after the great former enslaved African and abolitionist. We are not going to let this matter rest."

Daughtry and others have begun holding monthly protests in front of the building to demand a name change and to help educate passers by about the situation. This demonstration is followed by a ceremony just around the corner at the burial ground where the protesters go to be with their ancestors and "receive inspiration to always assert our pride and dignity; to enhance our commitment to the struggle for human rights, self determination and freedom; and to remind the nation that our ancestors were never paid for their labor; therefore, the nation is indebted to people of African ancestry – reparations is right, is due and must be paid."

As the focal point of the ceremony each month, a great Black leader is honored. Students from different public schools are invited to attend, after which they return to their classrooms to study further the person celebrated.

At midday on February 13^th, the birthday of Frederick Douglass himself, about 100 students from Junior High School 265 in Brooklyn and about 30 adults converged in front of the federal building. They then moved to the African Burial Ground where drummer Luc Grandoit, singer Kenneth Smith, community activists Geoffrey Davis and Jerry King joined Rev. Daughtry in performing a brief yet moving ceremony.

Frederick Douglass was one of the greatest orators of all time, so it was very appropriate that the centerpiece of the ceremony was a presentation by Brother King and Rev. Daughtry of excerpts from Douglass’ immortal speech delivered on July 4^th, 1852. With a total disregard for the fact that four million African people remained enslaved, the white citizens of Buffalo, New York had invited Douglass to give the keynote address at their Independence Day celebration.

Instead of making nice as they evidently expected him to, Douglass gave an eloquent and scathing speech in which he asked, "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?" He went on to say,

"I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless;…your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery;…your sermons and thanksgivings…mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."

As could be seen by their response, the current relevance of these last words was not lost on the people gathered at the African Burial Ground.

To further inspire his young listeners, Rev. Daughtry spoke, too, about a practice of one of their modern-day heroes, Tupac Shakur, who joined the House of the Lord Church at the age of 11. Tupac revealed to Daughtry that when he wanted to accomplish something, he wrote it on a piece of paper or got a picture of it and put it on the wall over his bed. Then he would not sleep in the bed until he achieved what he’d put on the wall.

Daughtry also told them of a person, who he called Jones, who wanted to be a doctor. Every morning he’d look himself in the eye in the mirror and say, "Good morning, Dr. Jones." "Fix your mind upon what you want to achieve and you can get it," stated Daughtry, "for there is a magnetism in the universe that draws you to it or draws it to you. As you grow up, you can be anything you want to be, but you’ve got to work at it."

He finished with the rousing words of Marcus Garvey, "Up you mighty race! You can accomplish what you will!"

During March, which is Women’s History Month, a remarkable Black woman will be honored at the African Burial Ground. For further information call (718) 596-1991.