The Rededication of Historic Gethsemane Cemetery Final Resting Place of Over 500 African Americans

photos courtesy of Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Little Ferry Nj, according to Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco on September 29th in 1985, historic Gethsemane Cemetery, the final resting place of over 500 African Americans, was rededicated with a formal ceremony. The process to get there started several years earlier when efforts began to secure the deed to the land. The County of Bergen, Bergen County NAACP, and Bergen County Historical Society worked together to create a roadmap to preserve the property, overseeing sensitive cleanup projects and conducting the research that informs our understanding of the site today.

Over 200 people attended the Rededication Ceremony, some with ancestors interred at the site while the cemetery was active from 1860 to 1924. The Garden State Choral Chapter sang hymnals while the names of the buried were read aloud. Several speakers left the audience with something to ponder. Keynote speaker Professor Ivan Van Sertima of Rutgers proclaimed, “By honoring our dead, we give a magical touch of immortality to them, honoring their deeds of struggle as well as their deeds of achievement. We become connected again, not only to a rich source of local history but to a rich source of all our history.” Rev. Richard H. Puryear of Hackensack’s Trinity Baptist Church closed out the ceremony with a prayer of rededication.

Gethsemane Cemetery, which dates from 1819, is located on a sandy, one-acre hill west of the Hackensack River in northern Little Ferry along Liberty (Moonachie) Road. Historically, this area has been called “Sand Hill,” and the burial ground was sometimes called the “San” or the “Sand Hill Cemetery.” It was also known as the Moonachie Colored Cemetery or the Hackensack Colored Cemetery.

Tell your story #TheRidgewoodblog , #Indpendentnews, #information, #advertise, #guestpost, #affiliatemarketing,#NorthJersey, #NJ , #News, #localnews, #bergencounty, #sponsoredpost, #SponsoredContent, #contentplacement ,#guestposts, #linkplacement, Onlyonesmallvoice@gmail.com