Cemeteries as More than Final Resting Places: How Exclusion and Racism Continues to Haunt African Americans After Death

FAIN: RFW-279346-21

East Carolina University (Greenville, NC 27858-5235)
Ryan N. Schacht (Project Director: September 2020 to present)

Archeological and ethnographic research in North Carolina assessing patterns of the abandonment of African-American cemeteries, resulting in public programming and scholarly articles. (36 months)

Our goal is to contribute to national conversations about African Americans ongoing marginalization through research efforts on the racial exclusion that continues to haunt their final resting places. Specifically, resources, care, and attention have been differentially mobilized by communities across time with respect to cemetery preservation. Here, we propose a three-year project to recognize and reincorporate the contributions of those marginalized due to patterns of segregation, racism, and neglect as a way to more broadly reconsider American heritage and identity. Our key aims are to 1) evaluate a pattern of African American cemetery degradation, 2) examine the multicausal process by which cemeteries become abandoned, and 3) identify how best to give voice to the presence of silenced past peoples. Ultimately, through archeological investigation and ethnographic interview, we plan to offer insight into contemporary local and national conversations on race, identity, and heritage.