Buried Memories by Caroline Gutman

Caroline Gutman first heard about unmarked African-American burial sites in South Carolina while photographing the legacy of indigo and its ties to chattel slavery. A historian told her the location of a potter’s field in the middle of Charleston that held the remains of more than 26,000 people, most of whom were Black. Gutman knew the site and had previously visited a community centre that now sits on the land. There were also baseball diamonds, parking lots, a playground and a college football stadium named after a Confederate officer, but there was no memorial acknowledging the remains that existed underground. Across the country, African-American burial grounds have been paved over with parking lots, performance halls and highways. Some have a marker, while others have been erased or forgotten, but community-led efforts are changing this. This long-term project looks at unmarked Black burial grounds and community-led preservation efforts and DNA testing to find living descendants of those buried.