The Colored Burial Ground, aka the Newburgh African-American Burial Ground, continues to await a historical marker placement and the return of human remains to the City of Newburgh. City residents gathered at the corner of Broadway and Route 9W on Sunday, October 8 for a continued conversation on the injustice done to Black people in the city.

In 2008, human remains, were discovered under the courthouse during routine construction. Questions were raised about the site, and further preservation efforts led to the remains being transported and preserved at SUNY New Paltz and other locations for the time being until a solution could be found.

The city is now closer to bringing the remains back home, when in November 2022, the city council approved an agreement with Studio HIP Landscape Architecture, PLLC and PUSH Studio, LLC, for the design of a site at the top of the hill in Downing Park for the remains to be reinterned and honored. The firms appeared before city council in early July 2023 with several concept renderings for the site and collected feedback on how to proceed forward. Final plans of the site were anticipated to be completed and presented to the council by the fall of this year.

Leading the conversation on Sunday afternoon was longtime city resident Gabrielle Burton-Hill who has actively been pursuing with the city the procurement and installation of a historical marker for the city courthouse site. Her work continues the longtime mission of the Colored Buried Ground Committee, made up of Ramona Burton, Dr. Benilda Armstead-Jones and Pamela Krizek, who have worked since 2008 towards the reinternment of the remains in the city and to undo the injustice done.

“I appreciate you giving us this time. And although we’re here talking about this tragedy, we’re grateful that we are here today. And we’re going to be part of the change,” said Burton-Hill. “We were not a part of the problem, but we can definitely be part of the change.”

Adding to the conversation about the burial ground were signs posted on the site that read “Black Bodies Buried Here”. Furthermore, Burton-Hill also shared a survey from 1869 that had marked the burial site previously, yet the Broadway School, as it was previously known was still constructed on top.

“I think this is important, what’s going on here. I think this is going to allow healing in the community, in the sense of race relations, I think it’s going to empower people to feel like they are something, they come from something great,” said Kyle Conway, Vice President of the Newburgh/Highland Falls NAACP.

“‘It’s kind of a little bit ironic that the courthouse is sitting on top of the burial ground in the area where like it was built off the backs of black people,” said Andrei Niles. “Like the saying goes, if you don’t know your history, you’re doomed to repeat it.”