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Included among the many buildings and lives lost during the horrific tragedy of 9/11 was the official information outpost of the New York African Burial Ground Project, the Office of Public Education and Interpretation (OPEI), formerly located in the U.S. Customs House at 6 World Trade Center.
Eventually leveled to the ground as a result of the attack, the educational clearinghouse was founded in 1993 - headed by Dr. Sherrill D. Wilson - and dedicated to disseminating information about the historic 18th-century African cemetery to the public. The building was situated between the North Tower and 7 World Trade Center.
Fortunately, "due to the ancestors," Wilson opined, there were no injuries or deaths of any OPEI staff, some of whom were late or delayed that day. The African Burial Ground's archeological lab, on the basement level of the same building, was also destroyed. But because the lab was closed down prior to Sept. 11, there were no injuries. Major funerary artifacts had been shipped to Howard University's W. Montague Cobb Biological Anthropology Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in anticipation of a reburial with the skeletal remains. Other burial items left behind miraculously survived the blowup.
Since reinterment never occurred in August 2002 as planned, the artifacts and 408 skeletons unearthed in 1991 remain securely locked in Howard laboratories. The bones were originally transferred there for analytical study in 1993 under the scientific direction of noted biological anthropologist Dr. Michael L. Blakey.
In a recent telephone interview with the Amsterdam News, Wilson revealed that...