Video: Dr. Michael Blakey’s lecture at Emanuel AME Church
On Dec. 8, 2025 nearly 200 people gathered at Emanuel AME Church to hear Dr. Michael Blakey discuss the urgent issue of burial ground protection in Charleston. Drawing on 40+ years of training and experience, Dr. Blakey described the anthropological approach he uses to convene descendant communities to ethically steward historic burial grounds.
This topic is especially relevant to PSC’s ongoing advocacy related to the historic public burial ground at 106 Coming St., proposed for redevelopment by the College of Charleston.
While visiting, Dr. Blakey met with Mayor William Cogswell, CofC President Andrew Hsu, the International African American Museum, and more than a dozen other community leaders. Blakey’s pioneering research project at on New York’s African Burial Ground serves as a valuable reference for how our community approaches this complex issue.
As Dr. Blakey noted in his remarks, Charleston is just the latest place where Black burial grounds face threats that force us to confront fundamental challenges head-on:
“Human beings have always been driven to share reciprocity and justice — in a plural democracy, justice prevails when respect for each is achieved.
Everyone will have a turn as a descendant of someone, but no one — certainly not in the real history of the United States of America — represents the ancestors of everyone.
The American Anthropological Association Commission for the Ethical Treatment of Human Remains has agreed with the world that descendants are the stewards of their ancestors and that no one ethically owns human remains.”
Thanks to all those who attended and to our community partners, the Anson Street African Burial Ground Project and the Protect and Respect the Bodies coalition. A special note of appreciation also goes to Mother Emanuel for hosting this impactful evening.
