Slave ship ruins reveal horrid conditions Africans endured

Yesterday's New York Times featured the article "Grim History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa." People have been sharing the story on Facebook and Twitter. The article tells some of the disturbing details of abuse 400 to 500 Africans endured on the São José Paquete Africa before the slave ship sank not far from the Cape of Good Hope. Unfortunately, the detestable conditions they faced were typical of slave ships. Some people reading the article have been shocked to hear how Africans were forced onto these ships and squeezed into cargo holds like livestock for a four-month journey to the shores of the Americas and Europe. But Lonnie Bunch, the founder of the African American History Museum at the Smithsonian knows this horrid history and of even worse traumas the enslaved suffered. So, he gets that the lives lost during these treacherous journeys, also known as the Middle Passage, and the lives of those who suffered in bondage later deserve a dignified remembrance. Here's how their memories will be honored at the museum Bunch runs: >> The space in the museum for the items pulled from the sea, he said, will include recordings of voices describing the slave trade — “a place,” Mr. (Lonnie) Bunch said, “for you to mourn and to remember.”