Politics

If You Die Poor or Alone in New York City, You’ll Be Buried by Prisoners in a Mass Grave

Published

10 years ago

April 2, 2015

Oakland Post

A trench at the potter’s field on Hart Island, circa 1890 (Jacob Riis/Museum of the City of New York)

(The Nation) – We all die alone. But some of us die even more alone than others.

In New York City, if you are unfortunate enough to come to the end of your days without family or friends, or if those who love you don’t have the means to pay for burial, you end up isolated and anonymous for eternity, stranded on a little-known island off the shores of the Bronx, almost entirely out of reach of anyone who might care that you are gone.

New York’s process for dealing with “indigent burials” has a distinctly Victorian flavor to it. Since the late nineteenth century, the city has interred its poor and anonymous dead on Hart Island, a 130-acre scrap of land in Long Island Sound. The final resting place for as many as one million souls—victims of yellow fever, HIV and a succession of other plagues, along with mental illness and poverty—it is the city’s Id, or maybe its Hades, a forlorn place accessible only by ferry.

And the burial process itself? This is done by convicts who are imprisoned on nearby Rikers Island. Paid at a rate of 50 cents an hour, they handle about 1,500 corpses each year, burying them in wooden coffins in unmarked mass graves. These burials usually happen on a weekly basis, far from the eyes of the public, in a grim and punitive setting. Aside from the prisoners and the ferryman, few people are allowed to visit the island.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 4 – 10, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 4-10, 2025

Published

6 days ago

June 7, 2025

Oakland Post

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Activism

Remembering George Floyd

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 2, 2025

Oakland Post

Mural showing the portrait of George Floyd in Mauerpark in Berlin. To the left of the portrait the lettering "I can't Breathe" was added, on the right side the three hashtags #GeorgeFloyd, #Icantbreathe and #Sayhisname. The mural was completed by Eme Street Art (facebook name) / Eme Free Thinker (signature) on 29 May 2020. (Wikimedia Commons)

By April Ryan
BlackPressUSA Newswire

“The president’s been very clear he has no intentions of pardoning Derek Chauvin, and it’s not a request that we’re looking at,” confirms a senior staffer at the Trump White House. That White House response results from public hope, including from a close Trump ally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. The timing of Greene’s hopes coincides with the Justice Department’s recent decision to end oversight of local police accused of abuse. It also falls on the fifth anniversary of the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25th. The death sparked national and worldwide outrage and became a transitional moment politically and culturally, although the outcry for laws on police accountability failed.

The death forced then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to focus on deadly police force and accountability. His efforts while president to pass the George Floyd Justice in policing act failed. The death of George Floyd also put a spotlight on the Black community, forcing then-candidate Biden to choose a Black woman running mate. Kamala Harris ultimately became vice president of the United States alongside Joe Biden. Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the cases against the officers involved in the death of Floyd. He remembers,” Trump was in office when George Floyd was killed, and I would blame Trump for creating a negative environment for police-community relations. Remember, it was him who said when the looting starts, the shooting starts, it was him who got rid of all the consent decrees that were in place by the Obama administration.”

In 2025, Police-involved civilian deaths are up by “about 100 to about 11 hundred,” according to Ellison. Ellison acknowledges that the Floyd case five years ago involved a situation in which due process was denied, and five years later, the president is currently dismissing “due process. “The Minnesota Atty General also says, “Trump is trying to attack constitutional rule, attacking congressional authority and judicial decision-making.” George Floyd was an African-American man killed by police who knocked on his neck and on his back, preventing him from breathing. During those minutes on the ground, Floyd cried out for his late mother several times. Police subdued Floyd for an alleged counterfeit $20 bill.