The Anson African Burial Memorial, envisioned as a lush garden surrounding a bowl-shaped fountain rimmed with bronze water-spraying hands, could be installed before the early summer on the southside of the Charleston Gaillard Center, according to organizers.
Originally planned for a 2023 opening, the memorial was conceived to honor 36 people of African and Native American descent whose remains were discovered in 2013 at the Gaillard. It was delayed, however, due to the project’s redesign that increased its cost, organizers said.
Initially interred in the 1700s, the remains were uncovered during the construction to enlarge the Gaillard, the city’s premier entertainment venue. The remains were given African names and reinterred in a vault on the Gaillard property in 2019 at Anson and George streets.
Plans called for the fountain to stand between the Gaillard and the vault that is flanked by two existing live oaks. But the Charleston Parks Department raised concern that placing the fountain between the trees would threaten the trees’ roots, said Nigel Redden, the former general director of Spoleto Festival USA who serves as a project’s leader.
A decision to place the fountain several yards to the right of the vault, Redden said, delayed the project and increased the cost from about $500,000 to slightly less than $1 million.
But actually moving the fountain didn’t increase the cost of the project, he said.
“What did have an impact on the budget was enlarging the area around the vault and the fountain,” he explained. “Enlarging the area meant more paths, a long fence and more plantings all of which definitely had a budgetary impact.
“I think it is a better project for it,” Redden told the Charleston City Paper. “Otherwise, it would have been cramped.”
A larger area for the memorial also brought delays as the project moved through the city’s complicated permitting process, he added.
The people buried on Anson Street were likely enslaved, and it is estimated they died between 1750 and 1800, Redden said. One of them was a Native American. The resting place is one of more than 80 burial sites of people of African descent identified on the Charleston peninsula, he said.
Expanding the mission
The money for the memorial has been raised, Redden said with confidence. The project’s founding fundraising partner, Wells Fargo Foundation, has garnered support from other foundations, individual donors, the state of South Carolina and the city of Charleston, he said.
Brenda J. Lauderback, chairwoman of Denny’s Inc., chairs the project’s fundraising arm, the Anson African Burial Memorial. For Lauderback the smooth bright bronze hands that will rim the fountain “not only recognizes the 36 individuals, but they represent the hands of all the enslaved people that truly built Charleston” and those who are buried in unmarked graves across the city.
Lauderback said she hopes the fountain will connect visitors to the city with the nearby International African American Museum (IAAM) and other historic sites in Charleston to create “a better understanding of the big picture of what enslaved people did for this city.”
The Gaillard is creating an educational component for teachers and their students that will be focused on “the 36 people and the mass graves throughout the city,” she said. “When you have a memorial like this, the story behind it needs to be told.”
Passing the torch
Durham, N.C., sculptor Stephen Hayes created plastic castings for the 36 pairs of bronze hands that were made at Carolina Bronze Sculpture Inc. in Seagrove, N.C. Fountain maker W.P. Law in Lexington is coating the fountain’s exterior with soil from unmarked graves in Charleston, Redden said. W.P. Law repairs the pineapple fountain at the city’s Waterfront Park.
The fountain is a dream of the late Dr. Ade Ofunniyin, a College of Charleston professor who founded the Gullah Society in 2013 to celebrate, research and protect Gullah history and culture and rescue neglected Black burial sites. He galvanized attention on the Anson Street burial site and other unmarked graves in Charleston.
Ofunniyin, who is affectionately called Dr. O, was the grandson of the legendary master blacksmith Philip Simmons. The fountain will be enclosed in an iron fence. Simmons’ nephew, Carlton Simmons, designed two gates in the fence before he died on Sept. 11 at age 65.
After Dr. O’s unexpected death in October 2020, the Gullah Society members formed themselves into the Anson Street African Burial Ground Project (ASABGP). La’Sheiá Oubré is the project’s director of education and community engagement.
After the remains were found, the Gullah Society took stewardship of them and the ASABGP continued the Gullah Society’s mission, Oubré said.
Molecular anthropologists Raquel Fleskes of Dartmouth University and Theodore G. Schurr at the University of Pennsylvania have studied the remains to learn more about the African and American origins of the individuals, Oubré said. The scientists and the ASABGP team have presented academic papers on their findings, she said. The community has also gotten involved by attending the project’s events and answered its call for hand models for the fountain, she added.
The ASABGP has also partnered with the Preservation Society of Charleston to map Black burial sites on the peninsula. Other project partners include the city’s Department of Planning and Preservation, the IAAM, the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and the Center for Historic Landscapes.
The remains were reinterred at the Gaillard on May 4, 2019, a month after a ceremony at McLeod Plantation Historic Site to give the individuals traditional Yoruba or Gullah names, such as Nana, Daba and Pita, Oubré said. Each May 4 since then the project has held a ceremony at the Gaillard.
A ceremony will be held May 4 even if the fountain is not installed, she said.
“When the memorial fountain is ready, then we will do another ceremony with the community,” she said.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.