A chain link fence on Church Ave in Flatbush, Brooklyn is covered in art, trespassing warnings and homemade signs. The fence surrounds a block of dirt and grass that sits parallel to a gas station and caddy corner to a church. According to historians, beneath this block of dirt is a historic African burial ground.
Facing years of proposed development on the site, a group of community activists, the Flatbush African Burial Ground Coalition, has been fighting every step of the way to make sure the site is preserved and honored.
Lifelong Flatbush resident Allyson Martinez is the secretary of the coalition. She remembers walking past the lot as a child. Once she learned about the lot’s history, Martinez knew it was necessary to view it as a cultural space of heritage and shortly after joined the coalition.
“The coalition was created by a bunch of artists, activists and people,” Martinez said. “Just general residents coming together upon hearing about what was happening on these grounds here. And then after, we all realized there was a lot more work to do than just listening to workshops and looking at how things were going, and we needed to band together.
Researchers say the lot currently occupies land originally inhabited by the Canarsie and Munsee Lenape indigenous people. After the Flatbush Reformed Church occupied the lot from 1654 until the early 1840s, excavations then started uncovering bodies. An 1855 map of the area discovered in 2020 shows that the northeast portion of the lot was part of an African Burial Ground.
Despite the longstanding knowledge that the lot was a burial site for enslaved Africans, the now vacant site has yet to be memorialized.
“Flatbush has changed a lot over the years because of gentrification, but what it means to me and a lot of us, is it’s home,” Martinez said. “This is one of those spaces that creates that extra value and that we need to appreciate.”
In October 2020, former New York City Mayor Bill…
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