2015 Summer Internship Program at African Burial Ground National Monument

NPS

The Student History Intern Program of the Manhattan Borough President's Office partnered with the National Park Service, Manhattan Sites, to place four student interns to work at the African Burial Ground National Monument during the summer.

Sosonia Ma, Tara Green, Joanne Chui, and Stephan Anku came to the African Burial Ground National Monument very prepared to work hard, efficiently and effectively throughout the summer. Our interns attend the Stuyvesant High School located in TriBeCa in Lower Manhattan. Stuyvesant High School is a college preparatory high school offering tuition-free, liberal arts focused high school education specializing in accelerated academics to city residents in the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.Admission to Stuyvesant involves successfully passing the Specialized High Schools

Admissions Test. Each November, over 28,000 eighth and ninth graders take this 2 ½ - hour exam, and roughly 800 students are annually accepted at Stuyvesant.

 

NPS

Our interns relayed their experience of working at the African Burial Ground National Monument, “Working at the African Burial Ground National Monument was the internship we requested for this Summer’s program. The Rangers and everyone at the Site were nice and supportive. We really liked being interns at the African Burial Ground National Monument.”

The interns, accepted a rigorous schedule and work responsibilities. They compiled an historical walking tour of African American landmarks, structures, streets, and the neighborhood situated within Lower Manhattan below Wall Street. Within the timeframe of their internship they wrote a well-researched article of the Middle Passage specifically the African Diaspora from the Caribbean to North America, including all port cities listed along the Eastern United States. The final requested assignment related to the Memorial itself, a detailed historically descriptive text of the symbols surrounding the Memorial designed by Rodney Leon.

The National Park Service looks forward to future partnership with the Manhattan Borough President’s Office for our centennial celebratory year of 2016. Thank you, Sosonia, Tara, Joanne and Stephan for your hard work and dedication.

View a webpage and research paper on 'The Middle Passage' created by our 2015
Interns at African Burial Ground.

View a series of webpages defining the Adinkra Symbols that were researched and
written by our 2015 Interns at African Burial Ground.