Found and Not Forgotten

Homegoing for the Sugar Land 95

Through the rediscovery of the unmarked burials of 95 people—mostly Black laborers caught in the post-Emancipation convict-leasing system that fueled economies across the American South—this work traces how remains uncovered in Sugar Land, Texas, reveal a larger, often overlooked legacy of forced labor. From that foundation, it situates the emerging memorial’s choreography in the traditions of an African American homegoing ceremony, anchoring on landscape, ritual, and narrative as tools for education, healing, and connection with descendants and future communities.