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Southern Virginia diocese, descendants honor enslaved Africans as their remains are permanently laid to rest

November 03, 2026

[Episcopal News Service — Williamsburg, Virginia] “Sia. Obi. Amara. They are known. They are loved. They are home.” Dozens of descendants of Africans who were enslaved in Virginia proclaimed these words before three of their ancestors were laid to rest for the last time. After spending decades stored and unnamed by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the ancestors were named and honored in a Nov. 2 worship service here at Bruton Parish Church. After the service, their remains were permanently reinterred nearby at the Utopia Quarters, a residential site for enslaved laborers within the Kingsmill on the James resort area, a former plantation. The ancestors were initially buried at the Utopia Quarters before their bodies were excavated. Loretta Burwell, an 82-year-old descendant of the African Burwell family who for decades has worked on genealogical and archival research and repatriation efforts, described the long day of reverence for her ancestors as “magnificent.” “It was perfect for the commemoration of the enslaved,” Burwell, a parishioner of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia, told Episcopal News Service. As a funeral service, the homecoming, called “Lament. Repent. Reconcile. Heal.,” was intentionally held on All Souls’ Day, the Christian day of remembering and praying for the deceased. “What we gather to do this day is to do what was not done long ago,” former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said in his sermon. “Our duty on this side of the Jordan [River] is to receive [the ancestors] anew by calling on this world to remember them – remember them as children of God. Remember them, made and created in the image and likeness of the Most High God.” The livestreamed service included readings from Amos 5:14-15 and 23-24, Psalm 23, James 2:8-13, Matthew 7:21-29 and Psalm 130. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe presided and Southern Virginia Bishop Susan Haynes led and directed the service, which was attended by descendants, members of the historically Black First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, and staff from the Smithsonian Institution and the Virginia Historical Society. “As a church, we have to acknowledge the whole story. That’s what we’ve begun to do, but acknowledging the story and marking it is a piece of it,” Rowe told ENS after the service. “Presiding Bishop Michael Curry made racial reconciliation forefront for The Episcopal Church. …To continue in that commitment toward reconciliation – to name part of that history, to repent and also to look toward a future – is of critical importance in this time.” The service is the culmination of The Long Way Home: A Season of Reckoning, a diocesan-wide 49-day season of formation, lament and repair that launched Sept. 14, Holy Cross Day. Additionally, the Newport News-based Diocese of Southern Virginia has hosted a series of events throughout 2026 centering reconciliation and repentance as part of its yearslong effort in reckoning with its history of racism and role in upholding slavery. That includes acknowledging the early history of Bruton Parish, which was the church home of several enslavers, whose names still appear on the pews. Founded in 1674, Bruton Parish sits within Colonial Williamsburg, which has been engaging in its own racial reconciliation work as it prepares to celebrate its centennial as a living-history museum Nov. 14 and 15. The research, service and its planning process “have been emotional,” the Rev. Jan Brown, an Episcopal priest who co-led the research, repatriation and reinterment of the ancestral remains and convened the service, told ENS. Her nonprofit, SpiritWorks Foundation Center for the Soul, created The Long Way Home: A Season of Reckoning. “We were able to … restore their humanity, and then … we were able to return them to the Earth,” Brown said. It’s unknown what Sia, Obi and Amara’s names were when they were alive, “but God knew their names before they were born,” Rowe addressed the congregation following Curry’s sermon. After being known in Smithsonian archaeological records as assigned serial numbers, they were given names of West African origin “not as replacements for what was taken, but as gestures of remembrance, offered with humility and with love”: Sia, a woman who was named from the word “victory” in Akan, a widely spoken language in Ghana, was among the first generation of the Utopia Quarters community. Her skeletal remains were discovered and excavated in 1974. Obi, a boy aged between 3.5 and 5, was given a name of Nigerian origin meaning “heart,” “father’s heart” or “heart of God” in Igbo. His recovered remains include a tooth fragment and a necklace made with Venetian trade beads. Amara symbolically represents all the unidentified ancestors whose remains were found in a refuse pit within the Utopia Quarters. They were given a name of Nigerian origin meaning “grace” and “gift from God” in Igbo. “Our baptismal covenant asks us to respect the dignity of every human being, so one way we can respect the dignity of these folks is to give them names,” Haynes told ENS ahead of the service. “For us, not only does naming them allow us to embrace our baptismal covenant, but it is also a reparation. It is one step towards repairing the racial relationship.” Brown, who served as a deacon at Bruton Parish for nearly nine years, planned the liturgy to center on the descendants, many of whom entered the church for the first time this week because “there’s a tremendous amount of pain.” “It takes time for [the descendants] to have trust. …There’s just so much hurt for so many,” she said. The planning process also emphasized respect and dignity for Sia, Obi and Amara, who now rest together in a wooden casket lined with unbleached cotton muslin. Bucktrout Funeral Home and Crematory in Williamsburg, the United States’ oldest funeral home founded in 1759, prepared the ancestors’ remains and organized the 5.2-mile vehicular procession with police escort to Kingsmill. The Diocese of Southern Virginia and Bruton Parish “gave them a nice casket and a proper burial that you would do for […]