This episode is the first of a three-part series produced by Eleanor Neil, contributing editor at American Anthropologist and Anthropological Airwaves. From the African American Burial Ground in New York City to the memorialization of violence in Northern Ireland to professional archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean, Eleanor asks archaeologists with different regional and methodological specialties to choose a single object or site, and, in their own words describe how this this site or artefact speaks to the interaction between archaeology and political or social identity across time and place. Here, Dr. Cheryl Janifer LaRoche discusses the African American Burial Ground in lower Manhattan and the influence it has had on public engagement, perceptions of slavery in the northern United States, and the empowerment inherent in recognizing one’s own past in the archaeological record. Dr. LaRoche’s is Associate Research Professor at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Her research on 18th and 19th-century free Black communities, institutions, and spaces combines law, history, oral history, archaeology, geography and material culture to define Black cultural landscapes, often navigating the convergences of public, private, political and social interests. 

Episode Transcript

Closed-Captioning

Further Reading:

LaRoche, Cheryl J. and Michael L. Blakey, ‘Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground’, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1997), pp. 84-106. 

Leone, Mark P. and Cheryl J. LaRoche, Jennifer J. Babiarz, ‘Archaeology of Black Americans in Recent Times’, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 35 (2005), pp. 575-598. Transcript: 

Credits: 

Writing, Production & Editing: Eleanor Neil 

Production Support: Anar Parikh 

Executive Producer - Anar Parikh

Thumbnail Image: Wally Gobetz, “NYC - Civic Center: African American Burial Ground National Monument” (2008) African American Burial Ground Memorial 

Featured Music: “Spirit Blossom” by Roman Belov  

Intro/Outro: "Waiting" by Crowander