When I first heard that we would be going to New York to visit the African Burial Ground I was excited. I was ready to learn more about these people, my ancestors, who were treated like animals and thrown into a mass grave without proper burials. The night before the trip I was happy and excited, so I just stayed up all night so I could get a seat on the bus. My spirits were still high even when we got there. I did not know what to expect. After we stood outside for a while, I was cold, hungry, and tired. I simply wanted to go inside and sit down. Once I got inside and started looking at the exhibits, I was just in awe. I was saddened by the fact that so many people were without identities and they were just thrown away like trash. While in side the museum we watched a short movie about a family burying one of their own. I realized that when it was left up to the African people to bury their people it was done properly even with the little resources they had. When it was left up to the people that despised our race, they threw them away because to them Africans were disposable. A man took us inside a structure that looked like a unfinished pyramid on one side and on the other side it looks like the bough of a ship. He crowded about fifty of us into the small structure. Once we were in there he told us to imagine that for the next month that small space was our home. He told us to imagine being chained to a person who was dying, standing in our own filth, and hearing the screams of a pregnant woman during childbirth. This affected me emotionally because I could not imagine being chained like an animal and being shipped to a foreign country in the worse conditions possible. Animals mill around in their own filth, but humans have ways of disposing their waste. It just gave me more drive to surpass all the stereotypes and succeed as a strong black woman.
By Christiana Flood
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