Third graders Liam Brady and Jasmine Hagbourne, from Brooks Elementary School, and Jenny Lu and Joseph Schmidt, from Medford High School, were awarded a $2,000 grant on April 2 for their proposal to place a remembrance memorial for 50 forgotten slaves, buried in Salem Street Burying Ground for more than 200 years.

A small ceremony took place in Michael Coate’s - Brady and Jasmine’s teacher - classroom. The children each received award proclamations read by Medford Mayor Stephanie Burke, who applauded the children’s idea.

“Keep on changing the world. You are doing amazing things,” said Burke. “Our whole community is proud of you.”

Coates, while writing a book about Medford’s history, had discovered the names of 50 African American slaves, in the “Negros, Etc.” section of the Vital Records of Medford: To the Year 1850. The slaves, who were servants of wealthy residents, reverends and doctors, were buried without a tombstone in a corner of Salem Street Burying Ground, which was exclusively used for the burial of wealthy Medford residents from the 17th to 19th century.

Coates told his students, Brady and Jasmine, about the findings. As members of Brooks Center for Citizenship and Social Responsibility (CCSR), the two elementary school students thought of placing a remembrance marker to commemorate the slaves, as part of their CCSR project.

The students raised $2,125 through their Gofundme page, exceeding their $2,000 goal.

They received help from two Medford High School CCSR mentors - Lu and Schmidt, along the way.

“They are definitely the future,” said Lu. “It’s great to see them work on this project.”

The students met Burke at her office to tell her about their project, prompting her to find ways to support them.

“The students visited me one afternoon, telling me about the buried people. I couldn’t believe that their heritage was forgotten,” Burke said. “We wanted to help them however we could.”

The $2,000 grant was funded by the Freedom’s Way Heritage Association, an 501(c)(3) non profit organization which coordinates the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, a region with permanently protected conservation land, the Minute Man National Historical Park, state parks and forests, extending from Malden to Fitchburg.

The members of the Association decided to allocate $2,000 of its $25,000 funding to the children’s project, after considering 18-19 proposals.

“This is our first year of our grant program. Seven independent reviewers read through the proposals and they considered [the students’] proposal to be well written and compelling by every person who read it,” said Patrice A. Todisco, executive director of the Association. “People were amazed that it was written by students.”

The unveiling ceremony for the memorial will take place on Saturday, June 8, at 10:30 a.m. outside of Salem Street Burying Ground. Lu noted that the students were thinking about a small unveiling, but with the grant they could not only make the event larger, but add important details to the memorial itself.

“We weren’t originally planning to put the names [of the slaves] on the stone,” said Lu. “[The grant] has taken off a lot of stress and opened new opportunities.”

Schmidt says that the memorial is significant for the Medford community’s understanding of its own history.

“Before I heard about this project, I only thought that Salem Street Burying Ground was for rich families in Medford,” said Schmidt. “I think it’s cool that we are able to uncover an unknown part of our history.”

This memorial will be an important addition to other memorials around Medford that stand to remember Medford’s history with slavery. “The Golden Triangle of Trade” mural at Medford’s Main US Post Office, the ‘Slave Wall’ (or Pomp’s Wall) at Grove Street, Interpretive Panels at Condon Shell Park, and the Royall House & Slave Quarters at 15 George St. show that Medford was once a center of slave trade.

“Slavery goes back to Medford’s founding” said Rosalind Shaw, a Tufts University anthropology associate professor.

The suggested marking for the stone memorial will be the following:

In honor of the more than fifty enslaved people who are buried here in unmarked graves. Dedicated April 27, 2019