BRING BACK THIS CEMETERY

THIS IS A CEMETERY is about a cemetery that belonged to the 2nd Asbury AME Church on Staten Island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its congregation were largely the enslaved of Staten Island and their descendants. In the 1950s, the cemetery was illegally seized by the city and paved over. None of the bodies were moved. Now it’s the parking lot of a strip mall. Among those still there are Benjamin Prine, the last person born into slavery on Staten Island, as well as his grandchildren, ranging in age from two months to two years. Yes, there are babies underneath the asphalt. That's how much the city cared about them. According to the late borough historian Richard Dickenson, there are anywhere from 90-1,000 people buried in that parking lot. Right now we can only account for 46.

Below is a map where the cemetery is located - it's the blue square by the "M" in "Maplewood," It's currently on the corner of Forest Ave and Livermore Ave.

 

 

 

 

As it is now there is no incentive to change the parking lot because there is no development happening, no condos being built here, no plans to change it from a strip mall. But by making it public we can bring to light a terrible injustice, and call upon the city to fix it. This GoFundMe is to help keep the project going. If this small corner of the world can change, then we can change even more. Because, unfortunately, there are many parking lots like this one.

 

The money will go toward the following:

 

With your donation you can let the people buried here know that we see them, we know that they lived, that they were loved, that they haven't been forgotten. And we'll let the city know too. It's time these lost souls were found and recognized as human beings.