Charleston, South Carolina — On Tuesday, community people gathered with state and College of Charleston officials to discuss the Coming Street Commons Project, which would develop new student dormitories on a site that includes an old burial cemetery in downtown Charleston.
The state Department of Environmental Services convened the meeting at 106 Coming Street, where residents may ask questions and express their concerns about the proposed construction.
The location is part of a public burial ground that could house thousands of individuals, according to Madison Lee of The Preservation Society of Charleston.
“Public burial ground in Charleston, it’s known to have possibly thousands of people, so those descendants are likely still in the area,” Lee told CNN.
Lee stated that community involvement is critical for preservation initiatives.
“I think that, you know, gathering community input is such a crucial element to preservation,” she told me. “There’s a lot of ways to commemorate, there’s a lot of ways to handle this site.”
The Protect and Respect the dead Coalition has expressed concerns about keeping and maintaining the dead buried at the site.
A coalition member, James Njonjo, stated that disturbing burial grounds violates spiritual values.
“That there’s a lot of practices and spiritual beliefs that come with death and that come with burial, and we don’t want to upset or disturb those beliefs or those people,” Ngongo told the crowd. “And especially for the descendants who have those kind of beliefs, disturbing bodies, that’s a big no-no.”
Njonjo explained that the meetings assist to concentrate community voices in decision-making.
“They’re informative, they put descendant voices at the center, they put science at the center, they put dignity at the center, and that’s what we’ve been asking for from the beginning,” he told me.
The College of Charleston says it wants to preserve the site’s heritage and integrity. The state Department of Environmental Services held its first meeting about the project.
