Author: Cathy Canning

AARCH Society is excited to announce another step forward in the Heritage Center Vision: after reviewing several proposals for exhibit planning and design, the Society’s evaluation team recommended the selection of Amaze Design of Boston, Mass. In July, the AARCH Society Board voted to affirm.

“The Amaze Design team has a proven track record of producing extraordinary presentations that will serve us well,” says AARCH Society President Protean Gibril.  “Their organization includes a talented team, and their proposal provided examples that we feel will create an exciting experience to provoke and “wow” Heritage Center visitors.”

Amaze Design has experience designing for a wide range of audiences nationally and internationally, with a client list that includes the National Park Service’s African Burial Ground in New York City, the August Wilson African American Culture Center in Pittsburgh, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Culture, the Tubman Museum in Macon, Ga., and the National Children’s Museum in Washington, D.C.

On August 18, Amaze Design’s Scott Rabiet will be in Frederick to see the Heritage Center site and tour the downtown area and Frederick Visitor Center with members of the AARCH Society Board.

The dream of establishing a permanent home for the African American Resources Cultural and Heritage Society (AARCH) is nearing fruition, with the goal of opening The AARCH Society Heritage Center in 2023.

Two decades in the making, it fulfills former Alderman William O. Lee’s vision. The new Heritage Center will be a vibrant place to tell the important and under-represented story of Frederick’s African American community.

The City of Frederick provided a lease for a 3,200-square-foot facility on the corner of Carroll and All Saint’s Streets. Ideally situated near the Frederick Visitor Center, the Delaplaine Arts Center, and the Sky Stage, the AARCH Society Heritage Center adds another prominent destination for heritage tourism.

The Heritage Center will include permanent exhibit space, a multi-purpose area suitable for theater/meeting space, and research and archival facilities. It will showcase local artifacts and feature first-hand accounts of Frederick’s living treasures, local African American residents 90 years old or older.

As we celebrate the second national observance of the Juneteenth holiday, America’s second Independence Day, we celebrate in spirit with the 250,000 plus formally enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Tex., when their freedom was declared in the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19,1865.

The legacy of Juneteenth is the history and the story of the strength and resiliency of Black Americans who refused to give up during the most painful period in American history when they were torn from their lives in Africa to endure centuries of enslavement in the Americas.

Remembering, preserving, and celebrating these stories of resiliency is what makes the mission of the African American Resources and Cultural Heritage (AARCH) Society so pertinent and relevant today. We recognize that June 19th, 1865 marked the beginning of a journey that promised to lead to freedom, equality, and justice for formerly enslaved Americans. We know that the journey continues. Though progress has been made, 157 years later, we still have much work ahead to realize the full promise of emancipation and equality.

As the Society moves closer to opening its African American Heritage Center in 2023, where the often-omitted stories of African Americans in Frederick County, Md., will be recognized, presented, and celebrated, we take the banner from the ancestors whose day of emancipation we celebrate on Juneteenth.

We thank the community for its support as we make progress toward realizing the vision of William O. Lee Jr. and David V. Key, are now among the ancestors. We are grateful for a Board of Directors, funders, volunteers, and members who believe in and support our mission and the vision for the future. We encourage everyone to learn about the history of Juneteenth and to find ways not just to celebrate emancipation day but to continue to find ways to effect positive change in their communities and in the world.

Protean Gibril, President
AARCH Society Board of Directors

AARCH Society was honored to receive a personal, behind-the-scenes tour at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in May to learn about their forensic anthropology research findings on the remains of several enslaved workers from the Catoctin Iron Furnace.

The remains of a woman in her 30s, her infant child, and a teenage boy were uncovered during the 1979 Route 15 expansion. Excavation for the highway revealed a cemetery designated for enslaved workers of the iron works. Thirty-five graves, located within the highway construction right of way, were excavated.

“There are so many important stories to be told about the contributions and ongoing legacy of the African Americans who worked at the furnace and their descendants,” said Protean Gibril, President of AARCH Society. “This was a fascinating yet emotional experience for us. It’s important to understand this history, but sad to see the evidence of the hardships so many people faced daily and the toll it took.”

Smithsonian forensic anthropologists Doug Owsley and Kari Bruwelheide began the tour with a brief explanation of forensic anthropology and the details that can be culled from skeletal remains about a person’s lifestyle, environment, physical condition and hardships, and diet. The team has looked at more than 15,000 skeletons from historical sites across the nation.

With the technological advancements of 3D modeling, the Smithsonian has been able to reconstruct physical likenesses of some of the remains in their collection, including a young woman who lived in colonial Jamestown and two individuals found at Catoctin Furnace: a 30- to 35-year-old mother and a teenager.

The Catoctin Furnace Historical Society began a reanalysis of the enslaved workers’ remains in 2013. From the bones, Owsley and Bruwelheide could see spinal deformation from carrying extremely heavy loads and high levels of zinc in the bones of one worker. Zinc, released during iron production, can cause anemia when inhaled in high doses. They also noted craniosynostosis, a fusing of plates in the skull which can be heredity or possibly caused by high exposure to smoke. This condition can damage the brain when it occurs early in a child’s development.

“The bones of Catoctin men and women show – almost literally – the effects of back-breaking labor. One elderly man’s spine was so damaged by a lifetime of hard work that he was unable to stand up straight,” said Bruwelheide.

Elizabeth Comer, President of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, has collaborated with the Smithsonian on this project and attended the May tour. “Against their will, the enslaved artisans of Catoctin Furnace produced vast wealth and prosperity for the owners, one of whom, Thomas Johnson, became the first governor of Maryland, in 1777, and a representative to the Maryland convention that ratified the federal constitution in 1788,” Comer said. “Even as he was endeavoring for freedom from Great Britain, he was the owner of the largest number of enslaved persons in Frederick County.”

The Smithsonian team has been able to extract ADNA from the remains of 29 individuals, which, if added to ancestry databases, may enable descendants to trace their history back to Maryland’s colonial days.

It is one of many ironies inherent in our nation’s past that enslaved workers at the Catoctin Furnace provided iron used to make cannonballs during the colonies’ War for Independence against Great Britain. Watch a National Park Service video on the history of African Americans at the Catoctin Iron Furnace.