African Burial Grounds

The African Burial Ground trip was one of the most memorable moments of my first semester freshmen year at Howard University. Even though it was only one day long I’m still grateful to have been able to see the burial grounds. I’m from New York State but not New York City so I don’t have the pleasure of visiting the burial grounds on my own time so this was a life time experience. I think it’s ironic that federal building was built on top of the African burial ground because my high school was built on top of a grave yard as well. That factor made me more interested in the grave yard. Before we got there I expected to see more of open space because I didn’t know the building was presently onto of it but the video helped me to understand how the burial ground. Our tour guy knew a lot of information and was knowledgeable but it was hard to hear him sometimes because we were such a large group of people and my classmates were complaining about the cold weather. I’m not too sure of what the symbols meant on the wall so I can’t speak a lot on those but I know they represented something important. Some symbolized religious matters while others dealt with symbols from astronomy. Looking at the model skeletons in the museum made me really think about my family. I thought about us being replaced with them and it made me wonder who those people were and what they could have been. Even though the trip was short I learned more about my ancestry so my goal was achieved.

Jasmine westbrook