Alexandra Jones: Archaeologist and Educator

I'm Alan Ververe and this is Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you one hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women you need to hear. Alexandra Jones is an historical archaeologist and educator who teaches at Goucher College in Maryland, and her academic work, Dr Jones focuses on the African diaspora and how Black communities have been affected by development or lost to history. She is

also founder of the nonprofit Archaeology in the Community. Listen and learn why Alexandra Jones is one of Seneca's Women to Hear. I'm speaking today to Dr Alexandra Jones, an historical archaeologist and educator and the founder of archaeology in the community. Dr Jones, Welcome. We're so delighted to have you with us. Thank you very much for having me now. You're an archaeologist who teaches at Goucher College in Maryland, and one of your interests is in covering the history

of African Americans and enslaved people in this country. How does archaeology help us understand the past as well, I might add, the present. So archaeology is a tool that can, you know, eyes to basically plug the holes where history has left people out. Um Oftentimes history is the recording of those in power, um men, people who are very wealthy.

And what you don't seem oftentimes in these documents when you go to libraries archives are the stories of the everyday person, of the person who is doing the mundane, of children of minority groups. And so what makes archaeology is so amazing is that it actually makes history polly vocal and it gives voice to people who otherwise have been silenced. But you're able to find them through the dirt and through the artifacts and the objects that lay left behind. I imagine this is not such an easy

undertaking or the challenges involved there's a lot of challenges. UM. When we think about archaeology, often time people think of just professors going out excavating and kind of doing um, you know, great adventurous sort of things. In actuality, it's a very expensive undertaking that's very time consuming, and oftentimes the general public doesn't know what exactly archaeology is and how exactly we can help them in their current lives

and sometimes in their actual current struggles. And so we are often faced with that challenge of explaining what we do, explaining how we can be utilized, in explaining the power of our actual field. Well, I know you've also written about how historic African American communities are endangered by urban development and road building, and we often read stories about the controversies that are created by these undertakings. I know you've got a particular interest for cemeteries. Why is it

so important to preserve these semiitary areas well? I think when we think about communities and we think about ourselves and you know how we got here, what we're doing, um, part of that or an extension of our community rather is our cemeteries, Um, this is the legacy of the people have come before us. This is the place where they rest. Oftentimes how they've been created and who created

these sacred spaces often have their own backstories. And so in preserving cemeteries, what we're actually doing is preserving the foundations of a lot of communities were preserving memory, and we're doing that through a landscape sort of form where you can go to this place and and remember and reminisce on um the phenomenal acts that everyday people did in order to get us where we're at today. So how does Gibs and Grow figure into this? What's happening

there and what is your role in that? So? Gives and Growth is a African American community that was established in the late eighteen hundreds UM, and it was founded and started by Sarah and Robert Gibson. And what came about in this community is a number of other African Americans purchased property UM from a gentleman and they purchased

it along Sunderlocks Road in Montgomery County, Maryland. And in establishing this community UM, what they also did was they established everything that they would need to survive and thrive because everywhere else around them very much it would segregated. UM. It wasn't open or welcoming to them, so they created their own church, they created their own school that was named number ten. And one of the things about this is Gibson Grove is located on locked tin of the

Sanno Canal. But it was also ten African American families who originally purchased property along here. So they started that, and then they started a fraternal order and this was Morning Start Tabernacli number eight. And this was a chapter of a larger fraternal organization that existed on the East Coast.

And the reason why this was so important was this paternal society was also a benevolent society, and benevolent societies for African Americans during this time operated much in the way that insurance companies operate for US, where if anybody in the community became sick, they would pay for doctors visits, they would pay for the burials of people, they would pay money out to the families UM or the orphan children to take care of them um after the depth.

So it's all of these um sort of things similar to what we think of when we think of life insurance that wasn't open or available to African Americans. So they start their own organization that served that purpose. And in doing that, the order established a cemetery and they had a meeting lodge where they would meet. They would have political meetings, they would sometimes have other religious leaders

come and visit and talk to them. They had social gatherings, but all around the back portion of the hall um was a cemetery where they buried everyone in the community. And what we're now saying and what's coming up now is that in the sixties, um if if you ever refer there as a book called The Color of Law, and it talks about the federal government and how the federal government sought to expand our infrastructure and strengthen our infrastructure.

But they did it by creating roads through colored in

African American communities. So they were intentional about this. So one of the things people don't think about is when you move a community, when you come in and do imminent domain and you pay them, you know, minimal amounts for their land and move them away, oftentimes what you aren't doing is moving the cemeteries and gifts and growth is very much a uh situation where you see that happen, where the highways split the community and the church is actually on one side, and then the hall and the

cemetery is on the other. As time continued, by destroying a community in this way and paying people because there were property owners in between that by paying community members to leave, what you end up happening is destroying a community. And so what we've now seen is that everybody is quite excited about the infrastructure bill and the fact that we're going to fix up our roads and our highways,

but we don't. And uh, kind of the back side of this is the same roads that initially in the sixties cut through communities are actually gonna cause further damage.

So for this particular community, Um Morning Start Tabernacle number eight is actually advocating for the highway not to be expanded any further because it directly runs into the actual cemetery, Which means that this place, that this resilient community of people who had nowhere else to go, who were self sufficient, who created all these wonderful things, are now going to be disturbed in death as some of their descendants were disturbed in life by having them to be forced and

moved out of the me senecas one hundred women to hear will be back after the short break, so Gibson growth. Today the cemetery is intact, but it's divided by seven Locks Road and the church is separated from it on the other side of the road. Is that what I understand? So the church and morning starts to have ancro number the cemetery. Both of them run along seven Locks Road and the highway actually by Sex seven Locks Road, so

it goes right across. There's like a bridge that was across the lots and on one side of that bridge as the church, and on the other side is the Order of Moses um and Morning Star cemetery and actual hall structure. So this is a really important perspective you have, especially as you discussed in terms of having new, very needed infrastructure repairs occurring, but to do that in a way that doesn't destroy what these communities represented and still represent.

So how did you get interested in archaeology as a child? Were you a junior Indiana Jones or was there some other motivation? So actually, for me, um, I became introduced to it in college. My um mother worked at the Smithsonian, so I grew up as a child of the museum, So I would say united the Museum was my real life experience as a little person, I'm running around after

hours in the Smithsonian museums. However, I didn't actually learn about archaeology and what it does in the role we can play until I got to college and I took

a course per my mother's suggestion. She thought anthropology would be amazing for me, and upon doing that is when the light bulb came up, came on and I discovered archaeology and recognized that all of the benefits and this is truly what I wanted to do because the idea of being the first person and a hundred, sometimes thousands of years to touch an artifacts since the original person placed it there, it's extremely exciting to me and it

is truly fascinating and the influence again of the parent in all of this, seeing your mom so involved in in museum work at the Smithsonian. So tell us about archaeology and the community. When I introduced you, I mentioned that you were the founder of this nonprofit. What does it do? Archaeology and the Community is education nonprofit and it has three problematic goals, one to teach you about archaeology to professional development, and three which is general over

all community programming. As it relates to archaeology UM, and this came up because again I am a child of d C. I do live in the shadows of the Smithsonian. However, the one thing that I noticed was there were no archaeologists. They didn't come out to classrooms. We never learned about what an archaeologist was in school, and I thought this

was a huge disservice. Going to graduate school at Berkeley, I saw all of the archaeologists from campus go out and go into schools and talk to students, and it was guaranteed every semester that they would have the ability to you know, exchange and talk with an archaeologist. But I recognized in my own community there wasn't that, and so I just made it my mission to change that so that kids could have the ability to go to

school and to know that there's an archaeologist. And not only is there an archaeologist, but there's one who grew up here in d C, who you know, does the same thing and goes to the same places and kind of hangs out and culturally has the same back brown as them as well. So I'm here in d C as well, and I'm wondering, what's it like when you go into the classroom as an archaeologist to explain to

the students about archaeology and about this community. It's amazing. Um, I'm a teacher at heart, so for me it's kind of like my second home being in a classroom with children. But to see the light bulbs go off, we need to start to explain what archaeology is, how it works, what are the cool things you get to do, the things you can define, the fact that you don't have

to go to a office, you work outside. Just kind of explaining all of like the wonderful aspects of it, and then how it also fixes problems because oftentimes when people think of archaeology, they only think of textbooks and things that you read about where the movies, But they don't also think that we work in real time as social justice advocates, and we advocate for present communities in highlighting what their past is and um, where they came from,

the importance of remembering and maintaining that past to not only them, but to the States and then also nationally for our national kind of just history and understanding of as as a complete nation. Well, you know, kids always have an interesting perspective, whether it's an archaeology or any number of other things. Have there things that have surprised you by virtue of what they've said to you or

what you know they've learned. For me, I think I'm always surprised when I get the student who's asked one, now, I want to be an archaeologist. I think mostly that that that lets me know that I did my job right. But I've had students tell me before, like, I don't look at things on the ground the same as I used to because I understand that somebody put it there, or it could be something that came, you know, from long ago, or that it has meaning um to everyone.

So just to have a child start to restructure the way that they see their lived environment and start to look at it differently from art two pictures to structures to just dirt um, that in itself is just truly amazing. And it surprises me when I do get those comments, because again, I mean, you like to believe as a teacher, all you know all of your students are listening to you. But I think it's truly amazing when they make a comment that lets you know they really hit home and

they are paying attention. But it must still also be so reinforcing in terms of validating what you're achieving with archaeology and the community that it really makes a difference. Do you mostly focus on elementary school age or beyond? So we cover elementary all the way theater college UM, and so with the elementary and high school students it's a little bit different. Elementary it's more introductory UM, explaining the different sides of archaeology, doing hands on projects and

introducing them. Our high schools sudents are field schools where they're actually getting out at a site and getting dirty and learning how to do the process of archaeology. And our college students it's how to interact and talk with the public and the community, and how to create innovative community programs. So, by working with all of the age groups, were kind of keeping the process going of creating really great global citizens who are really thinking creatively about our

past and how we tell those stories. Well, you're certainly doing that and working in this field. It must also give you a long term perspective on life and current events, a different kind of perspective given what's going on in our world, how do you see things visiviate the lens of archaeology. I think the study of archaeology. Archaeology is the subdivision of anthropology, which is the study of humans

and just human culture UM. And the one thing I think that's constantly reinforced to me is that xenophobia has always been at the root of a lot of the

problems that we have within the world. And if we were to just stop and actually learn about our neighbors and learn about their culture, learn about the wonderful things that make them different, and appreciate those differences and celebrate those differences and celebrate in a way where it's part of our collective narrative, I think we would be a much better global society UM to live in than what we are today. Well amen to that. I'm always sad when we run out of time, which we have come

to at this point. But I really want to thank you Dr Alexandra Jones for what you're doing using your great skills and experience in archaeology to uncover the history of African Americans and enslaved people in this country, and also what you're doing to interest young people in our country on the ways that archaeology makes a difference, and they can make difference if they pursue that career. So thank you so much for being with us and for all that you do. Thank you very much for having me.

What a different perspective we get in our history by talking to Dr Alexandra Jones. Here are three things I took from that conversation. First, Dr Jones is bringing to light the stories of forgotten African American women and men. As Dr Jones says, archaeology makes history vocal and it gives voice to people who otherwise have been silenced. Second, it was exciting to hear Dr Jones tell why archaeology

can be so meaningful. She described the thrill of being the first person to test something that had been placed by another person a hundred or a thousand years ago. Finally, Dr Jones reminds us that knowledge can bring understanding between people, and as we learn about the people who came before us, we can appreciate their differences and bring them into our collective narrative. Tune in next week to hear about our next featured woman and discover why she's one of Seneca's

one Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio with support from founding partner PNG, Have a great day.