Savannah activists seek to rename squares built on slave burial grounds, named for slave owners

Jubilee Day was marked in Savannah with song, dance and a call to action.

Jubilee Freedom Day, put on by the Center for Jubilee co-founders Patt Gunn and Rosalyn Rouse, commemorates the anniversary of William Sherman’s Union troops arriving in Savannah in 1864 to enforce Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

The event is in its seventh year, and commemorates the beginning of the end of slavery — almost exactly six months from Juneteenth, the anniversary of when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Sunday’s event was filled with singing and Gullah Geechee storytelling, with a focus on healing and reconciliation. 

But this year, Gunn and Rouse sought to do more than educate. They want change. 

At the event, Gunn called for historical markers in both squares, making note of the fact that the green spaces rest on sacred ground — they were burial locations for enslaved Africans in Savannah.

They hope to rename Calhoun Square to Sankofa Square. The Sankofa bird is a Ghanan symbol expressing the importance of knowing one's history, the word itself translating to “go back and fetch it.” 

They seek to change the name of Whitefield Square to Jubilee Square, after Jubilee Freedom Day.

“Let the record show that we are looking for some good trouble, and we’re looking for some community change agents as we begin to request the city of Savannah for this name change. We know this is a beloved city, but we want no more redacted history,” Gunn said. “The Sankofa bird says, ‘Go back and fetch it.’ This Jubilee Sunday, we pledge to go back and fetch it.”

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A group of onlookers gathered in Calhoun Square for the event, and later walked over to Whitefield Square for more music by the Saltwata Players.

“According to the city of Savannah Archives Department, they have confirmed what all of us already know as Gullah Geechee people: that this here be a sacred ground. This here be where our ancestors lay,” Gunn said.

Gunn said urban slaves who died in Savannah were either buried in the backyard of the homes of their owners, or in the burial grounds where these two squares now stand. 

In 1851, the city elected to turn the burial grounds into squares. 

She made note of George Whitefield’s historical marker in his namesake square.

“George Whitefield was a Methodist minister, and they’ve got a marker down there that tells all about him. But they don’t say he was also an owner of slaves at Bethesda Orphanage,” Gunn said.

John C. Calhoun, for whom Calhoun Square was named, wrote that slavery was not a “necessary evil,” but a “positive good.”

“I would not want a pro-slavery advocate’s square built on top of me if I were a slave. It’s our job in the 21st century to ask for a replacement,” Gunn said. “We’re taking that cause on.”

Gunn said the center will work with the city to “put the history back.” She hopes to begin working collaboratively on the renaming, noting that in Charleston, a statue of Calhoun was taken down back in June. 

Gunn said Savannah’s “social justice moment” should begin with these two squares.

“Jubilee has to have some kind of meaning,” Gunn said. “And the meaning is social justice.”