Land from former slave market donated to US park service
Source: AP
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS and ROGELIO V. SOLIS
NATCHEZ, Miss. (AP) — The National Park Service on Friday accepted a Mississippi city’s donation of land at a site that was once one of the largest slave markets in the United States.
The federal agency eventually will develop exhibits that tell the history of Forks of the Road, where Black people were sold to work in slavery in Southern plantations from 1833 to 1863.
The site in Natchez has had a sign and a small monument made of concrete and shackles. Officials have been working since 2005 on proposals to create a detailed memorial.
More than 100 people watched Friday as the city donated nearly 3 acres (1.2 hectares) to the park service — a ceremony that took place a day after President Joe Biden signed legislation to create a federal holiday for Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.
Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson, third from right, and elected officials join the National Parks Service representatives in showing off the new signage that will adorn the entrance to the Forks of the Road slave market site, following the donation of 2.86 acres of city-owned land where the slave market existed, to the Natchez National Historical Park, a unit of the National Park Service (NPS), Friday, June 18, 2021, in Natchez, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-la-state-wire-ms-state-wire-parks-lifestyle-74d7a9c13dd66d2c57ebbdacbda49e0e
= new reply since forum marked as read
are developing programs to research and educate the public about this part of their history
https://wpln.org/post/belle-meade-plantation-hires-a-black-historian-giving-voice-to-long-silenced-slaves/
..."When she returned, the plantation named her its first-ever director of African American studies. Her mission is to research and gather artifacts about the African Americans who lived on the plantation, from the Atlantic Slave Trade through the Civil War into the mid-1900s.
She acknowledges, when visitors see that a black woman is giving them their slave tour, she gets a few strange looks. Even her family was uncomfortable with the idea at first.
....
But at Belle Meade Plantation, Jones has spent months researching archives across the South to uncover history that Belle Meade had never before seen. They now offer daily tours focusing on slavery.
And in the process of uncovering a forgotten history, Jones has connected more to her own family’s roots. During her research, she has traced her ancestors to a plantation close to her hometown in West Tennessee."...(more)
