2022 LSU Gumbo - Book - Page 191
After an LSU professor realized the Student Health
Center was built atop a cemetery for enslaved plantation
workers, he found himself a year later standing on the
SHC’s grounds reading the names of the people enslaved on
the plantation in 1837.
Geography professor Andrew Sluyter came to the
realization of the cemetery’s existence after going through
the university’s archives. He read the names before a crowd
on Thursday as part of the Libations Ceremony Program,
an event hosted by members of the Diversity Committee in
the School of Social Work.
Libations were done by Thomas Durant Jr., a past
director of LSU’s African and African American Studies.
He thanked the ancestors for the hardships they endured
and the sacrifices they made, the crowd echoing “àsẹ,”
which is an African word similar to the word “amen.”
“We honor our ancestors who were interred on this
very site,” Durant said. “We honor them because they are
deceased and thus we are the voices for them.”
Sluyter believes the ceremony allowed the community
to reconnect with the enslaved people buried on the SHC’s
grounds.
“A lot of us have worked on this campus for many years,
but never thought much about the people who worked on
this campus hundreds of years before that, many of them
enslaved,” Sluyter said.
Zach Tompkins, a university archivist, attended the
ceremony and said Sluyter completed the majority of his
research in the Hill Memorial Library using historical
records, particularly the Reveille archives.
Tompkins believes the faculty’s research provides an
exploration of ideas and brings light to the voices and
stories that would otherwise go unnoticed.
“To see an event like this where people come together
from on and off campus in the community--it’s an
inspiring thing and a uniquely LSU moment,” Tompkins
said.
Cassandra Chaney, the chair of the Diversity
Committee in the SSW, was the leading force in planning
the event.
“It meant so much to have everyone present,” Chaney
said. “It really did. And, I know the ancestors are just so
happy to see people of different races and of different ages
come together for this moment. This is the beautiful thing
to do, but it’s also the right thing to do.”
One of her favorite parts of the event was when Sluyter
read 32 of the names of the enslaved people who worked
on the plantation, potentially the same people buried on
the grounds. The names ranged from ages three to 55.
Chaney said she always tells her students that they’re more
than just names and ages.
Graduate student DeShara Doub also helped plan the
event. While she believes every element of the ceremony
was necessary, the reading of the names was very personal
to her.
“I think a lot of times, we could just think, ‘okay, oh,
it’s just a space, right?’ but putting a name to a space
is something,” Doub said. “I had to kind of gain my
composure back.”
Doub agrees with one point a speaker made about
placing a placard or cross in honor of the enslaved people
buried on the grounds. It’s absolutely necessary for people
passing through the space to know how significant its
history is, she said.
Photos by John Buzbee
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