Sankofa?: How Racism and Sexism Skewed New York's Epochal Black Research Project

by David R. Zimmerman

SANKOFA? How Racism and Sexism Skewed New York’s Epochal Black Research Project is an investigative report on an important - and costly - anthropological study that failed. The research was on bones dug up from a black slave cemetery in New York City. The city's current black population - the “Descendant Community” - was promised key information about their ancestors and antecedents. But little was provided. This failure, carefully described here, casts light on the relationship between the researchers who do the work and the federal government, which pays for it - with taxpayers' dollars. The Fed failed to monitor this project closely until it slipped its traces. The scientists and the government hid the problems from the public. Only later was Author David Zimmerman able to pursue the matter through documents and interviews with some of the participating scientists. The Project Leader, Anthropologist Michael L. Blakey, PhD, and his close associates refused Zimmerman's interview requests. Others scientists were forthcoming. This is a sad but dramatic account, written for all readers, of science gone wrong. It is a cautionary tale designed to enlighten readers and, it is hoped, discourage other such debacles..

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2013