reposting from Hyperallergic blog
Museum Archive Leads Bronx Students to Forgotten Slave Burial Ground
Major online archives of accessible images have become regular news out of museums, and part of the reason is stories like this: elementary school kids in the South Bronx have used a photograph from one of those archives to bring about historic recognition for a long-forgotten slave burial ground.
On January 24, students and staff of PS 48 joined state elected officials and other leaders from the community for a public call to action to give the recently rediscovered cemetery state historic listing, and hopefully national attention. The Hunts Point cemetery was unearthed through a photograph in the Museum of the City of New York’s Collections Portal online. Marked simply “Slave burying ground, Hunts Point Road” and dated to 1910, the washed-out photograph shows a few simple tombstones amid a tumble of dry grass and spindly trees. [read more]