Ten human remains found at a historic African burial ground in Queens were disinterred and placed in storage. Now, the pastor of the church that is steward of the site wants them reburied and the plot transformed into a memorial to the slaves and freed slaves still buried there.
The Rev. Kimberly Detherage, pastor of St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church, is calling on the city to buy the historic site once owned by the church — and recently turned into a parking lot by a limited liability company that’s since ghosted the property, as revealed last week by The City Reporter.
“The church has survived all these years, but we want to do right by the people buried there. We want them reinterred and their stories told,” Detherage told The City Reporter. “To erase a burial ground, you erase the people in it. You erase the contributions they made to the community.”…