The Kunta Kinte–Alex Haley Foundation and Asbury United Methodist Church, Annapolis, are joining together to create the Asbury Cemetery Memorial Garden—a permanent place of remembrance honoring the nearly 300 individuals believed to be buried at this historic site.
On Sunday, September 27, the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation will hold its annual commemoration of the arrival of Kunta Kinte to the Annapolis docks. This ceremony has been held every year since 1987, recognizing the arrival of the Lord Ligonier, which sailed from the Gambia River on July 5, 1767, with 140 captured Gambians. It arrived in Annapolis, Maryland on September 29, 1767, with only 98 survivors. Haley believed one of those survivors was his Ancestral Elder, seventeen-year-old Kunta Kinte.
For more than forty years, from 1931-1974, two sisters from Anne Arundel County, Elizabeth Carr Smith & Florence Carr Sparrow owned and operated Carr’s & Sparrow’s Beaches. These two sisters were the first African American females to operate such large business enterprises in Annapolis, Maryland.
On July 20, 1979, Marjorie Ann Jennings was the first African American female named to the Maryland Parole Commission.
In 1987, Debra Hardy-Cartwright, MD was the first African American female physician to open and operate her own private OB/GYN practice in Annapolis, Maryland.
In 1994, Mary Louise Sellman "Bunny" Jackson was the first African American woman elected to the Anne Arundel County, Maryland Orphans Court as an Associate Judge.
In 2011, the Rev. Dr. Carletta Allen was the first African American female appointed as the lead Pastor of the historic Asbury United Methodist Church, Annapolis Maryland.