AN ESTIMATED 100 people attended the rededication of the Mount Zion African-American Burial Ground on South Wall Street in Kingston on Sunday.

The cemetery, which dates to the early 1860s, holds the remains of a number of black war veterans dating to the Civil War. Thanks to efforts of the Kingston Veterans Association and the Kingston Land Trust, the long-neglected site is being preserved. The land trust's African-American History Committee launched an effort to secure historic landmark status from the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Register of Historic Places.

In connection with the rededication, the Old Dutch Church in Kingston, formally known as the First Protestant Reformed Dutch Church of Kingston, issued a "statement of reconciliation" last week, formally apologizing for the church's role in supporting slavery and segregation, which had extended even to burial grounds.

Besides the Mount Zion cemetery, another African-American burial ground had existed on Pine Street in Kingston. That site was paved over for the development of the Pine Street Professional Offices in the 1960s.

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