Jean-Jacques Dessalines was the first Haitian Emperor, and leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Initially regarded as governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I (1804–1806) by generals of the Haitian Revolutionary army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. He spearheaded the resistance against French massacres upon Haitians, and eventually became the architect of the 1804 Haitian Massacre against the remaining French residents of Haiti, including some supporters of the revolution. Alongside Toussaint Louverture, he has been referred to as one of the fathers of the nation of Haiti.
African Burial Ground National Monument is a monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way in the Civic Center section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its main building is the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. The site contains the remains of more than 419 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been as many as 10,000–20,000 burials in what was called the Negroes Burial Ground in the 18th century. The five to six acre site's excavation and study was called "the most important historic urban archaeological project in the United States." The Burial Ground site is New York's earliest known African-American cemetery; studies show an estimated 15,000 African American people were buried here.
A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-19th century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries. They were typically built 1–5 mi (1.6–8.0 km) outside of the city, far enough to be separated from the city, but close enough for visitors. They often contain elaborate monuments, memorials, and mausoleums in a landscaped park-like setting.
The trafficking of enslaved Africans to what became New York began as part of the Dutch slave trade. The Dutch West India Company trafficked eleven enslaved Africans to New Amsterdam in 1626, with the first slave auction held in New Amsterdam in 1655. With the second-highest proportion of any city in the colonies, more than 42% of New York City households enslaved African people by 1703, often as domestic servants and laborers. Others worked as artisans or in shipping and various trades in the city. Enslaved Africans were also used in farming on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley, as well as the Mohawk Valley region.
The United Nations Slavery Memorial, officially known as The Ark of Return – The Permanent Memorial at the United Nations in Honour of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, is an installation at the Visitors' Plaza of the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, intended as a permanent reminder of the long-lasting effects of slavery and the Transatlantic slave trade. It was designed by Rodney Leon, a Haitian-American architect, and installed in 2015.
The Old Calton Burial Ground is a cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland. It located at Calton Hill to the north-east of the city centre. The burial ground was opened in 1718, and is the resting place of several notable Scots, including philosopher David Hume, scientist John Playfair, rival publishers William Blackwood and Archibald Constable, and clergyman Dr Robert Candlish. It is also the site of the Political Martyrs' Monument, an obelisk erected to the memory of a number of political reformers, and Scotland's American Civil War Memorial.
Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Reparations can take many forms, including practical and financial assistance to the descendants of enslaved people, acknowledgements or apologies to peoples or nations negatively affected by slavery, or honouring the memories of people who were enslaved by naming things after them.
The United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea, located at Tanggok in the Nam District, City of Busan, Republic of Korea, is a burial ground for United Nations Command (UNC) casualties of the Korean War. It contains 2,300 graves and is the only United Nations cemetery in the world. Laid out over 14 hectares, the graves are set out in 22 sites designated by the nationalities of the buried servicemembers.
The Sandy Ground Historical Museum, located within the Sandy Ground community of Rossville in the borough of Staten Island, is dedicated to the oldest continuously inhabited free black settlement in the United States. The museum is home to the largest documentary collection of Staten Island's African-American culture and history and it may also be home to the only intact 18th -century African cemetery in America. As of February 2023, it is temporarily closed due to maintenance and operational issues
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a non-profit organization, based in Montgomery, Alabama, that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and others who may have been denied a fair trial. It guarantees the defense of anyone in Alabama in a death penalty case.
International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is a United Nations international observance designated in 2007 to be marked on 25 March every year.
The International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015–2024, was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in a Resolution (68/237) adopted on 23 December 2013. The theme of the International Decade is "People of African descent: recognition, justice and development".
Human trafficking in New York is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor. It occurs in the state of New York and is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes, "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, is a memorial to commemorate the black victims of lynching in the United States. It is intended to focus on and acknowledge past racial terrorism and advocate for social justice in America. Founded by the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative, it opened in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018.
The Ted Weiss Federal Building, also known as the Foley Square Federal Building, is a 34-story United States Federal Building at 290 Broadway in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1994, the building was developed by Linpro New York Realty and designed by Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum (HOK), with Raquel Ramati Associates as the design consultant and Tishman Construction as the general contractor. The building is named for Ted Weiss (1927–1992), a U.S. representative from New York.
Delois Blakely, also referred to with the honorary title Queen Mother, is an American former Catholic nun and current religious leader, pan-Africanist, writer, activist and humanitarian.
Old Town of Flushing Burial Ground is a historic cemetery located in Flushing, Queens, New York City. It was established in 1840 and known as The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground. It was the result of Cholera and Smallpox epidemics in 1840 and 1844, added by town elders north of Flushing Cemetery due to fears of contamination of church burial grounds. Once known as "Pauper Burial Ground", "Colored Cemetery of Flushing" and "Martins Field", it was purchased by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation on December 2, 1914, and renamed in 2009 to "The Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground".
Nicole Hollant-Denis is an American architect, founder and principal of Aaris Design Studios. She is best known for her work on the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City, for which she won the NOMA Design Excellence Honor Award. Hollant-Denis's other projects include the redesign of La Marqueta Plaza in Harlem, New York.
The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. Directed and funded by the Department of Indian Affairs, and administered mainly by Christian churches, the residential school system removed and isolated Indigenous children from the influence of their own native culture and religion in order to forcefully assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture. Given that most of them were established by Christian missionaries with the express purpose of converting Indigenous children to Christianity, schools often had nearby mission churches with community cemeteries. Students were often buried in these cemeteries rather than being sent back to their home communities, since the school was expected by the Department of Indian Affairs to keep costs as low as possible. Additionally, occasional outbreaks of disease led to the creation of mass graves when the school had insufficient staff to bury students individually.
The Slavery Memorial is a sculptural memorial on the campus of Brown University that recognizes the institution's 18th century connections to chattel slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. Designed by sculptor Martin Puryear and dedicated in 2014, the memorial stands on the university's Front Green, adjacent to University Hall.
