Goldman Asks Congress for $15 Million for African Burial Ground Expansion

Though it ranks among Manhattan’s most important historic sites, the African Burial Ground National Monument (ABGNM) rarely gets much attention. Indeed, even as politicians, reporters and activists have regularly descended upon the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, a.k.a. 26 Federal Plaza, to watchdog and protest U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations there, one would’t know from the resultant stories that the ABGMN, including a large outdoor sculpture, exists just steps across Reade Street away. Among the persons congnizant of both locations is frequent ICE critic and U.S. Representative Daniel Goldman who is asking Congress for a $15 million budget appropriation that would fund a major ABGNM expansion.

“The African Burial Ground is an important part of New York City’s history, serving as a permanent tribute to the enslaved and free African men and women who lived in and helped build the foundations of New York,” wrote Rep. Goldman in his request for monies in the the Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill. “Establishing a permanent museum would ensure that our city and nation never forget the important historic contributions that people of African descent have made to the establishment of New York City and the United States of America.”

Goldman’s letter was addressed to Chairman Mike Simpson (R-ID) and Ranking Member Chellie Pingree (D-ME) of the Subcommittee Chairman on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, and co-signed by four of his Democratic house colleagues, Reps. Jamie Raskin (MD), William Keating (MA), Tim Kennedy (NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC). The venerable Norton, 88, is in her final term in office, having announced this past January that she won’t seek reelection.

Specifically, Goldman’s missive states “This request supports the establishment of the African Burial Ground International Memorial Museum and Educational Center as an expansion of the existing monument.”

The key word here is expansion for though it’s not visible from the outside, the ABGNM includes an impressive, if modestly scaled, National Park Service (NPS) run museum-like visitor center, including a small gift shop, on the ground floor of the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. Admission to the ABGMN is free though one must pass through security screening to enter.

The outdoor monument component of the ABGMN including a large memorial sculpture is bound by Reade Street to the north and Elk Street to the east.

Except when these streets were closed to the public for presumed security reasons—as Straus News exclusively reported last July—the sculpture and its grounds can be admired by any passersby and signs along its border explain the site’s significance. The memorial, designed by Brooklyn natives Rodney Leon and Nicole Hollant-Denis of AARIS architects, opened in 2007, with the visitor center opening in 2010.

A Monunument Hiding in Plain Sight?

Why the ABGMN is so often overlooked is open to speculation. The self-promotional diffidence of the NPS is likely a factor. This past February, for example, when Council Member Christopher Marte and Assembly Member Charles Fall co-hosted a Black History Month celebration there, it was difficult to learn about this on the ABGMN homepage and their related, infrequently updated, social media platforms.

When Straus News attended a Kwanzaa event at the ABGNM in December and asked if they had set a date for the Black History Month event yet, a top NPS official answered “check our social media.” “Yes, but I’m standing right here,” the reporter asked. “Can I check with you?”

As for whispers that the ABGNM has purposely been keeping a low profile to elude the attention of anti-DEI forces within the Trump administration, they are mostly that—speculative and without detail. Interestingly, the one person who’s made that claim publicly is Rep. Goldman.

In a March 9 Instagram post, the vocal solon wrote: “The Trump administration is cutting funding and rewriting history at our National Parks and Monuments. In [Goldman’s district] NY-10, they are trying to erase history at the African American Burial Ground and Stonewall National Monuments that must be honored and preserved.”

While the Rainbow flag fight at Stonewall received a great deal of attention, it’s unclear at press time what ABGNM erasure Goldman is referring to.

Mamdani Steps to the Microphone

Whatever the answer, it doesn’t take Trump to take see the ABGNM taken for granted. The institution didn’t receive a surfeit of attention during the Biden administration and even when the most closely watched person in the city recently spoke in front of the memorial sculpture, no New York media outlet reported it.

On Tuesday morning March 24, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani joined the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, and other African and Caribbean dignitaries, among others for a wreath laying ceremony honoring victims of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Though Fox 5 and CBS 2 microphones were attached to the podium, these stations don’t appear to have run a story. If any other local press was present, they didn’t report it either.

For Ghana News TV and Africa-related outlets, the event was big news and reported as such.

”Ghana is a nation that holds deep meaning for me,” offered the Mayor. “My father gave me the middle name Kwame after Kwame Nkruma, the first leader of Ghana, a leader who fought for freedom. And that longing for freedom unites all humanity, across geography and history. It is that longing for freedom, and the sacrifices made by so many to win it, that we are here today to commemorate...”

”It was nearly 400 years ago that first enslaved people arrived at the Port of New York. Twenty-two souls, likely from Angola, were originally on a Portuguese ship bound for sugar plantations in Kotahena [Sri Lanka] before the Dutch intercepted and enslaved them once more, this time under the Dutch West India Company. And so began a shameful history of slavery here in our city, one that is just as much a part of our story as the Revolutionary War battles that were fought in Brooklyn or the bridges and skyscrapers that defied any precedent...”

The Mayor continued, eloquently, in his polished public manner, but the question lingers: why did New Yorkers have to seek out Ghana news to learn about it?