Sites of Memory: Historic African American Cemeteries in Duval County, Jacksonville, Florida.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Black Studies and Archaeology" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This study centers on four historical African American cemeteries in Jacksonville, Florida: Memorial, Sunset Memorial, Pinehurst, and Mount Olive. Collectively, these cemeteries contain thousands of African American burials. Contrary to the local government’s critique of these cemeteries as ‘abandoned and neglected’ spaces; interviews with contemporary African American residents and the sites’ material culture suggests that these burial grounds are important heritage sites. The current study includes the voices of roughly forty African American residents. Many of them are my kinfolk, friends, and associates (Gwaltney 1980; Atkins-Spivey 2017). Ultimately, it is their perspectives that have guided my research and interpretation of these sites. Moreover, this project articulates its findings using terms and phrases coined by Toni Morrison (1995) and Salamisha Tillet (2012): sites of memory and civic-estrangement. Morrison and Tillet provide a vocabulary that is explicitly consistent with the social and political experiences of African Americans living in Jacksonville, Florida today.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Black Studies and Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology