Philadelphia commissions a public memorial to commemorate a forgotten Black burial ground.
By Jared Brey
Artist Karyn Olivier (seated) wanted to create a plaza that responded to the weather. Photo by Ground Reconsidered.
In 2012, an independent historian found documentation of a nearly forgotten burial ground at the edge of Center City Philadelphia. An estimated 5,000 Black Philadelphians were interred on a small plot that belonged to Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church between 1810 and 1864, when city cemeteries were still racially segregated. Sold to the city in 1889, according to reports, the property was turned into a park in what is now the heart of Queen Village, an upscale, mostly white neighborhood.
To commemorate the site?which was added to the city?s Register of Historic Places in 2013 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2016?the city?s Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy commissioned a public memorial and selected a proposal by the Philadelphia-based artist Karyn Olivier. Called Her Luxuriant Soil, a reference to a quote from Mother Bethel?s founding pastor, Richard Allen, the concept was developed in collaboration with a team of designers that includes Ground Reconsidered, a Philadelphia-based landscape architecture firm. After a series of delays, including the pandemic, the project is scheduled to be put out to bid this summer and start construction in the fall. The centerpiece of the proposal is a series of granite pavers...