New Database Tracks Slave Graveyards Across US

Fordham has launched a first-of-its kind national database designed to catalog places in the US where slaves are buried. The Burial Database Project of Enslaved African Americans is the brainchild of Fordham's Sandra Arnold, whose ancestors were slaves, reports the New York Times. The site relies on visitors to submit information about the locations of cemeteries along with those buried there.

“The fact that they lie in these unmarked abandoned sites, it’s almost like that they are kind of vanishing from the American consciousness," says Arnold. The intent is to build a "historical network of sorts," says the Root, which interviews Arnold and others involved with the project. Had something like this been in place last year, it might have saved Walmart some construction headaches in Alabama. (More slavery stories.)