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Hi Friends Interested in the Walter Pierce Park Cemeteries: We hope you'll join us at the Washington History Conference on Saturday, November 14, from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Sumner School at 17th & M Streets NW, to hear about the most recent discoveries from the survey of the African American and Quaker cemeteries at Walter C. Pierce Community Park. Howard University Professor Mark Mack will present findings from the ground-penetrating radar survey he is overseeing this year. Using non-invasive methods, Professor Mack has been investigating the cemeteries at Walter Pierce with a student team for four years. Professor Mack, a veteran of the New York African Burial Ground Project, is an impressive speaker, and we in the concerned community have been extremely fortunate to have the benefit of his expertise. Eddie Becker, filmmaker and neighborhood historian, will help the audience understand the complexities of the Walter Pierce site with a short video, prepared especially for this conference. I'll be presenting the results of the archaeological team's review of more than 75,000 death certificates at the D.C. Archives, where we went to find the names of those men, women and children who were buried at the Walter Pierce cemeteries from 1874--when death certificates started being kept in the District--to 1890, when the African American and Quaker cemeteries were forced to close. We're now entering those names and additional biographical information into a database that will be made public. At last count, we've documented at least 8,441 people buried in the Walter Pierce cemeteries, which occupied about 7 acres of land. Historian, author and accomplished speaker C.R. Gibbs will moderate our panel presentation, giving us the benefit of his expert perspective on the Walter Pierce cemeteries. All sessions at the conference are free and open to the public. This year's theme is Civil War Washington. You can see the whole three days of events at http://washingtondchistory.wetpaint.com/page/2009+Conference+Program Spiritual Advice Needed: Professor Mack and I had the opportunity to meet with the Men's Group of Asbury United Methodist Church last Saturday, to share with them the many ties between Asbury and the Colored Union Benevolent Association cemetery. The Benevolent Association was multi-denominational, including Methodists, A.M.E. members, Baptists and Catholics, and probably other church affiliations not yet known. Quakers in 1807 founded their cemetery at Walter Pierce that was much smaller (100"x100") than the later, surrounding African American burial ground. We've researched the Walter Pierce cemeteries as scientists and historians, and we've amassed much information. But we need to hear from those of you who have spiritual, ancestral and cultural connections to the site. We need to meet with church leaders and others who can give us advice on how the graves should be protected, and how we should memorialize them. If any of you could help on this front, please call me at 202-462-9069, or contact me by e-mail, maryjbelcher@comcast.net . Mini-Morning-Cleanup Saturday Nov. 7, 9-11 a.m.: Before cold weather sets in, we'll have a mini-cleanup of the steep hillside leading down from Walter Pierce Park to Rock Creek on Saturday, Nov. 7, from 9 to 11 a.m. As many of you know, this an area where human remains have been washing out due to erosion. But this National Park Service hillside is more famously known as an environmental disgrace, where there is litter from encampments, drug needles and other human-made assaults on this sacred site. We have trash bags and work gloves for people who can help, and we should be able to collect the surface trash within a couple of hours. However, we recommend that only able-bodied adults (no children), wearing boots and grungy clothes, join us for the clean-up due to the hazardous, rugged conditions. We'll need to "tread lightly on the earth" on this site, so we don't disturb any graves. Please note: The clean-up will be canceled if there's heavy rain and/or wind. Mary Belcher, community liaison to the Walter Pierce Park Archaeology Project 202-462-9069; maryjbelcher@comcast.net Matthew Gilmore H-DC list co-editor, web editor dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu http://www.h-net.org/~dclist/ [list website] http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to H-DC] Remember to check http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=H-DC for past list messages.
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