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Chip Colwell, Associate Research Professor of Anthropology, University of Colorado Denver

The disgraceful history of erasing Black cemeteries in the United States

The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground in Richmond, Va. CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY

The burying ground looks like an abandoned lot.

Holding the remains of upward of 22,000 enslaved and free people of color, the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground in Richmond, Virginia, established in 1816, sits amid highways and surface roads. Above the expanse of unmarked graves loom a deserted auto shop, a power substation, a massive billboard. The bare ground of the cemetery is strewn with weeds.

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