Mapping the African American Past (MAAP) illustrates places and moments that have shaped the long history of African Americans in New York City.

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In September of 2007, Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn got a new name. Today, the street sign reads "Abolitionist Place," in honor of the many people in this neighborhood who braved fines, imprisonment and death threats to continue the struggle against slavery. This activity took many forms: some spoke out from the pulpit, while others hid men, women, and children in their homes as kidnappers and slave catchers roamed the streets and docks. In the 1800s the harbor nearby was one of the busiest in the world. Hundreds of ships loaded with cotton or tobacco from the South came and went. The ships also carried stowaways bent on stealing their own freedom. Other runaways were brought here by conductors of the Underground Railroad, such as the famed Harriet Tubman. They all found shelter in the neighborhood's churches and safe houses. In addition, they were given food and clothing collected by local women's organizations.

It is known that Thomas and Harriet Truesdell, both staunch abolitionists, lived at 227 Duffield. Some say the homes up and down the block were part of the Underground Railroad. Runaways were hidden in the Bridge Street AWME Church, the first African American church in Brooklyn, just two short blocks away. A 10-minute walk from Abolitionist Place was the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, known as the "Grand Central Depot" of the Underground Railroad. Abraham Lincoln came to the church, as did Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth. The name Abolitionist Place honors all the men and women, both black and white, that made this neighborhood a hotbed of antislavery activity.

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by Kenneth Jackson

by Robert O'Meally

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Known for its charismatic leadership and community outreach, the Abyssinian Baptist Church was formed in 1808 by a group of African Americans and Ethiopians who refused to accept the segregated seating in the First Baptist Church of New York City.

A long line of highly effective, dedicated early ministers included Rev. William Spellman (b.1856-d.1885) and Rev. Robert D. Wynn (b.1885-d.1902), who put the church on solid financial footing and significantly increased the membership.

In 1908, the church selected the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., a well-known charismatic minister, as their new pastor, ushering in "the Powell years." In 1922, the present-day Gothic- and Tudor-style Abyssinian Baptist Church was built, thanks to money collected from Powell's tithing campaign.

Powell retired in 1937 and his son, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., became pastor. An articulate visionary, champion of justice and equality, and power in the so-called "Black Revolution," he served 14 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and increased the membership of the church from 7,000 to 10,000.

Powell retired in 1971 and was succeeded by Dr. Samuel Proctor, a minister with a distinguished background as an educational leader and administrator. Dr. Proctor carried on the "Powell legacy" with the assistance of his executive minister, Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, who succeeded him in 1989.

Dr. Butts has dramatically expanded the church's programs throughout the greater Harlem community to include tutoring, scouting, music, housing, and health care.

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by Kenneth Jackson

by Kellie Jones

by Dowoti Desir

by Rodney Leon

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The AFBG is a federally designated historic landmark and archaeological site that was used as a cemetery by free and enslaved people of African descent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It's believed that between 10,000 and 20,000 people are buried here. The site covers approximately 7 acres and is bounded by Duane Street on the north, Chambers Street on the south, Centre and Lafayette Streets on the east, and Broadway to the west.

In 1991, archaeological fieldwork began. While excavating a site for a new building at 290 Broadway, construction workers discovered skeletal remains of early Africans. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 because of its unprecedented potential to provide information about the lives of early Africans, including their quality of health and the region of Africa they came from. (One previously unknown fact: The mortality rate for children under 16 years old was 43% based on a sample of 301 individuals buried at the site.) The information gathered by archaeologists and historians significantly altered historical misconceptions about the life and culture of Africans. And burial practices revealed at the site reflected the cultural and religious beliefs of enslaved people that had previously been undocumented -- such as the fact that many of the people buried here had played a significant role in the building of New York City.

Mayor David Dinkins, Lt. Gov. David Patterson, Illinois Congressman Gus Savage, Dr. Michael Blakey, and a Howard University team of researchers deserve recognition for the key role that they played in preserving this crucial part of African American history.

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Soon after the Revolution, in 1785, a group of wealthy, powerful white men formed the New York Manumission Society. Although many were slave owners, their mission was to aid the enslaved, and to gradually end slavery in the state. As part of their efforts, they opened the African Free School in 1788, where the children of both free and enslaved blacks were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. The boys also studied astronomy, a skill needed by seamen, and the girls learned sewing and knitting. The school had many visitors--especially on examination days when students could show off their work to outsiders. In this way, they could prove to doubting New Yorkers that black students were "not inferior to those of fairer complexions...in acquiring a knowledge of Letters."

The school began with about 40 students in one room. In the 1820s, as the date of freedom for New York's slaves drew near, the enrollment grew to 800 students. By 1834, when the African Free schools were absorbed into the New York public school system, over 1,400 students were enrolled in seven school buildings.

Many of the students of the African Free School went on to become community leaders. James McCune Smith became the first African American licensed doctor, Henry Highland Garnett was a leading abolitionist and the first African American to address Congress, and Ira Aldridge became the most famous African American actor of his day. As students, these men learned the art of public speaking. As adults, many used that skill to speak out for freedom, justice, and equality for their race.

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On Mercer Street in the fall of 1821, King Lear limped out onto stage and the audience went wild. Lear was black. The event was the first play staged by the first black theatrical producer, who had formed the first black theater company that went on to perform the first play written by an African American in the first black theater in the country. The genius behind it all was William Alexander Brown.

His venture began back in 1816 in a place Brown called The African Grove. During the summer, white New Yorkers enjoyed private "tea" gardens that offered ice cream treats, cold drinks, music, dramatic readings, and conversation. According to the papers, Brown opened the first tea garden to "which the sable race could find admission and refreshment." It was a great success and led Brown to build the 300-seat theater on Mercer Street. Here his company staged popular versions of Shakespeare's Richard the III and Othello. They also presented original works such as King Shotaway, a play written by Brown about a black Carib revolt in the Caribbean.

But the African American theater was an annoyance to the Park Theater nearby. Stephen Price, the producer of the Park, hired white rowdies to yell and "riot" at the African Grove. When the neighbors (including Price) complained, the police shut the theater down. The African Grove became a mobile theater for several years before closing its doors.

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As soon as it was legal for black New Yorkers to organize, they did so. In 1808, the African Society for Mutual Relief was founded. (The Society may have met in secret earlier, but there are no records to prove it.) At that time, black children could not go to white schools. If their parents died, white orphanages were closed to them. Insurance companies would not sell policies to African Americans. Even graveyards were segregated. As a result, the Society formed a much-needed safety net for African American families and small businesses. Members' dues paid for burial costs and a form of health insurance. If a member died, their widow and children received help.

In 1810, the New York Legislature granted their petition and the Society became the first incorporated African American association. Members celebrated the event with a parade and took to the streets carrying silk banners and signs. The association grew quickly.

In the beginning money was short, but in 1820 a former Haitian slave named Juliet Toussaint donated enough money for a plot of land and a meetinghouse at 42 Baxter Street (called Orange Street then). Located in the Five Points neighborhood, the African Hall for Mutual Relief became an important meeting place, a school, and a stop on the Underground Railroad. It was also a target. In the anti-abolitionist riot of 1834, a white mob attacked the Hall, breaking all the windows and wrecking the place. But the society survived that riot, as well as the draft riot of 1863, and lasted until 1945.

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by Dowoti Desir

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Best known as the place where Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, the Audubon Ballroom has long been a center of African American social and political activity.

Located at 3940 Broadway between 165th and 166th Streets in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, the theater was developed by William Fox, a Hungarian immigrant who founded the Fox Film Company in 1915.

Designed by Thomas Lamb, one of the leading theater designers of the time, the building's Broadway facade featured a three-dimensional terra cotta boat with the head of Neptune, based on the mythical ship Argo of Jason and the Argonauts fame.

The ballroom, located on the 2nd floor, served as a venue for a number of important historical events, such as the meeting place for the Municipal Transit Workers Union. It also was the venue for the annual New York Mardis Gras festival, when a King and Queen of Harlem were crowned.

More recently the site has been controversial because of a plan by the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, which purchased the property from the city of New York, to raze it and build a medical research center.

African Americans protested the demolition and a compromise was reached, whereby part of the original building would remain and a memorial to Malcolm X would be created. A statue of Malcolm X now stands in the Broadway lobby. In 1997, David Graves, a California artist, created a 12-by-63-feet mural to honor Malcolm X's achievements.

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Bedford-Stuyvesant, also known as Bed-Stuy, is home to the largest concentration of blacks in New York City and one of the largest in the country. The earliest Africans to live here were enslaved. They worked the fields and tended to the house chores for their Dutch, and later English, masters. But as early as the 1830s, free blacks arrived in the area, bought land, built homes, and planted gardens. Weeksville, as the first black community in this area was called, lay at the rural edge of settled Brooklyn. Its isolation made it a safer place for blacks escaping slavery as well as a refuge from racist violence for free blacks. After the Anti-Abolitionist riots of 1834 and the deadly Draft Riots of 1863, many blacks left Manhattan and moved to Weeksville, as well as to nearby Williamsburg and Bedford.

Built around a new railroad station, Bedford grew and eventually included the old village of Weeksville. Blacks continued to move to Bedford along with German, Jewish, Italian, Chinese, Greek, and Irish immigrants. The neighborhood expanded to include Stuyvesant Heights. By 1940, Bed-Stuy was only 25 percent black. It was only after World War II that Bed-Stuy became mostly black. This enabled the community to go to the polls in 1960 and elect Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in the U.S. Congress.

Today a new diversity and a new pride can be seen in Bed-Stuy. Locals boast of its many stars of film and music. As a banner hung on Restoration Plaza declares, the feeling is "Bed-Stuy and Proud of It."

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During the Revolution, at least 80,000 African Americans declared their own independence--and fled. The British had promised freedom to any slave who left a rebel master (but not a loyal one) and made it to British lines. Harry Washington, whose owner was the patriot General George Washington, was one of 800 who reached British lines in Virginia. He fought for "Liberty to Slaves" in an all-black regiment, and when the British left that colony for New York, he went with them.

By 1780, there were more than 10,000 blacks living in a British-occupied New York. Many lived in a "canvas city" of shanties and tents that sprang up between Broadway and the Hudson River. The area had been burned to the ground when the patriots abandoned the city. Blacks who fought with the British, like Harry Washington, lived in "Negro barracks" at 18 Broadway, 10 Church Street, and elsewhere. These men fought in units known as the Black Pioneers and the Black Brigade. Most did the hard support work the army needed, but some were armed and fought. The most famous Black Pioneer was Colonel Tye, who led 800 men in a guerrilla war against the patriots in Staten Island and New Jersey.

When peace came, so did the slave hunters. In 1783, they roamed the city, seizing blacks from the streets and even from their beds. But much to General Washington's dismay, the British refused to return those slaves who had been promised freedom. Instead, their names were written in the "The Book of Negroes," and some 3,000 free African Americans climbed aboard British ships and sailed away. Harry Washington would eventually reach a place in Africa not far from where he was born.

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It was October 1865, only months after the last shots of the Civil War were fired. People in Brooklyn opened their newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle, to learn that "Last evening an immense congregation, fully half consisting of whites, was present at the African M. E. Church in Bridge street." What brought so many white people to the black church? Harriet Tubman, the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, was speaking. Moses, as she was called, was in a familiar place. Before the Civil War she had led some 300 enslaved men, women, and children to freedom by hiding in "stations" such as the Bridge Street Church during the day and traveling at night.

The original church, known as the Sand Street Methodist Episcopal Church, was founded by a British army captain in 1766. He first led open-air services for a congregation of blacks, whites, and Indians near the banks of the East River. The congregation grew and the church moved indoors. Unfortunately, racism eventually developed, and the African Americans were first segregated and then barred from the altar and charged a fee for worshiping.

The black worshipers broke away in 1816 and organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church on High Street. Later, when it moved, it was called the Bridge Street Church. The congregation could claim many firsts. They had the first black church in Brooklyn. It was located in Weeksville, one of the first black communities in the city. And in 1827, the congregation opened Brooklyn's first school for black children.

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Catherine ("Katy") Ferguson was born in 1779 with almost nothing--not even freedom. Her mother was sold away when she was 8 years old. That was when Katy became determined to gain her freedom and make the world a better place. She did both.

First she wanted to learn to read. Her mistress said she was too smart already--smarter than her own children -- and refused her. At the age of 10 she asked her master for her freedom, promising to live a life serving God. He refused her. At 16 she found a woman who agreed to purchase her freedom for $200 if Katy would repay her. It took Katy 11 months of work to pay $100 back; then someone in her church paid the remaining debt. Katy was finally free.

To make a living she made wedding cakes, the best in town. The rest of the time she helped others. She began to take children in off the street on Sundays and got others to teach them to read the Bible. When her minister heard what she was doing, he offered to move the group to the basement of his church. Some say this was the first Sunday school in the city.

Katy also took in a total of 48 needy children, 20 of them white. She cared for them, fed them, and found them all good homes. When Ferguson died, the newspapers wrote, "Thousands in this community have heard of or known Katy Ferguson...the celebrated cake-maker for weddings and other social parties. But many...may be ignorant of the... extraordinary good deeds which crowned her life." The reporter also said that wherever Katy lived, the whole neighborhood became a better place for it.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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If you were black and orphaned in New York in the 1800s, there was nowhere to go but the cruel streets. So in 1836, three Quakers, Anna and Hanna Shotwell and Mary Murray, founded the Colored Orphan Asylum to provide assistance to homeless and destitute black children. It was the first such institution in America. In 1846, the brilliant and socially-minded Dr. James McCune Smith, the country's first licensed black medical doctor, became the orphanage's medical director, where he and other like-minded members of the black community encouraged the children of the orphanage to seek skilled jobs when they left the orphanage.

Housed in a four-story building with two wings of three stories each, on Fifth Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Street, the building was home to an average of 400 children annually.

The orphanage is remembered best not for the good it did, but for what happened to it on July 13, 1863. On that day a hate-filled mob of white men and women ransacked the building, looting and burning it to the ground, igniting the New York City draft riots of 1863. The 233 children in residence were led to safety by the matron, barely escaping with their lives.

Two firemen, Chief Engineer Decker and Paddy McCaffrey showed exceptional bravery trying in vain to put out the fire, risking their lives to help save the orphans from the fire and the angry mob.

The orphanage was re-established on 51st Street and later moved to 143rd Street between Amsterdam and Broadway in Harlem.

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David Ruggles might have been the most hated activist of his day. One slave catcher screamed that he would give "a thousand dollars if I had ...Ruggles in my hands as he is the leader." And Ruggles was just that--a leader against slavery. He came to New York around 1827 from Connecticut, where he was born free. When he arrived he was 17 years old--and fearless, determined, and educated.

The year 1827 was a time of parades celebrating the end of slavery in New York. More and more runaways were arriving from the South every day. But right behind them were the slave catchers. Called "blackbirders," they roamed the streets looking to reclaim some of the runaways and even to kidnap free blacks. No black person was safe. Ruggles saw how dangerous the city was and decided to do something about it.

In 1835, he and several other young black activists founded the New York Committee of Vigilance. Ruggles and the rest of the Committee protected runaways and confronted the slave catchers. He made the city government grant jury trials to slaves who were recaptured, and he obtained lawyers for them. He personally helped as many as 600 fugitives, including the now-famous Frederick Douglass. He also ran an antislavery bookstore until it was destroyed by a mob. In addition, he wrote hundreds of articles. He bought a printing press and published his own pamphlets and a magazine called Mirror of Liberty. It was the first periodical published by a black American. But after 20 years of activism, Ruggles was nearly blind and seriously ill. Many, including Frederick Douglass, came to his aid. Ruggles died in Massachusetts in 1849.

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Before New York was called the Big Apple, it could have been called the Big Oyster. New York was famous for its oysters. And Thomas Downing, a free black man, owned the most famous oyster house of all. Bankers, politicians, stockbrokers, lawyers, businessmen, and socialites flocked to Downing's Oyster House to eat raw, fried, or stewed oysters, oyster pie, fish with oyster sauce, or poached turkey stuffed with oysters. As the crowd of power brokers ate and made deals under the chandeliers, Thomas's son George lead escaping slaves to the basement. There they were safe from the "blackbirders," or bounty hunters, who were roaming the streets in search of runaways.

From 1825 to 1860, Thomas, and his son George T. Downing were part of the Underground Railroad to Canada and freedom. They were also leaders in the growing abolitionist movement. In 1836, Thomas helped found the all-black United Anti-Slavery Society of the City of New York. The next year he began petitioning New York State for equal suffrage for black men. He took one petition after another to Albany. "If one petition failed, another would be presented," he said. When not a single high school in the city would accept African American students, he helped found the first schools that would accept them. According to his son, Thomas Downing was an "extremely active" man who "knew not tire."

When Thomas Downing died on April 10, 1866, the New York Chamber of Commerce closed for the day out of respect.

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by Kellie Jones

by Robert O'Meally

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Edward Kennedy Ellington (b.1899-d.1974), known as Duke Ellington, changed the sound of popular music in America and around the world. He began by playing the piano at age 7. In 1917 he formed his first band, called The Duke's Serenaders. They played in their hometown of Washington D. C. until Ellington left the comforts of home for the creative energy and opportunity of Harlem. Once there, Ellington's band played frequent gigs at the famous Cotton Club. It was a whites only club, but fans could tune in to hear live broadcasts of the shows. The Duke became famous and his band played on throughout the Great Depression.

Over a span of 50 years Ellington wrote music for 3-minute records, for movies, the theater, orchestras, and the church. He played and led a band that toured the world, giving 20,000 performances and changing the sound of music wherever they went. Ellington received 13 Grammy Awards and 16 university degrees. He was awarded the President's Gold Medal by President Johnson, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Nixon. The country of France gave him their highest award, the Legion of Honor. But the highest praise was from his fellow musicians. The great Miles Davis said, "I think all the musicians in jazz should get together on one certain day and get down on their knees to thank Duke."

Duke Ellington died in New York in 1974. On the day of the funeral a black man, who had come down from Harlem, said, "I'm just here to bear witness. A man passed through and he was a giant."

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The year 1741 started out badly. Poor whites and blacks lived in fear of freezing or starving to death. There were food shortages and the winter set records as the coldest known. And then there were fires. First the governor's house in Fort George burned to the ground. Then there were four fires in one day. People panicked, thinking it was a slave uprising--their worst fear. Africans were one-fifth of the community's population, and there had been violent uprisings in the past and in other places. A hunt for the conspirators began, as more fires were set.

In this climate of hysteria, a grand jury quickly agreed that there was a plot to burn the city and kill its inhabitants. It was thought that there were ringleaders and that they must be white. The first arrested, mostly black men and a few whites, were thrown into jail in the basement of City Hall, where they were questioned and probably beaten. Large rewards, including freedom from indenture, were offered to any who would give evidence. An indentured servant named Mary Burton was the first to name names. She described a great plot, led by white ringleaders. This was just what the investigators wanted to hear. Soon others agreed to give names. It was not long before 160 black and 21 white men and women were arrested in "The Great Negro Plot."

At trial the accused had no legal representation. All the lawyers were working for the prosecution. At least 34 people were convicted and brought to the Execution Grounds. Seventeen blacks were hanged, as well as four white "ringleaders." Thirteen Africans were burned at the stake. The events were remembered as the "Bonfires of the Negroes." An additional 70 enslaved African Americans were shipped to the Caribbean and sold.

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During the first half of the twentieth century, Brooklyn, New York was the home of the proud Ebbets Field, a major league baseball stadium reminiscent of a modern Roman coliseum. Every baseball season, the Brooklyn Dodgers would suit up and prepare for battle against formidable foes in the pursuit of greatness, and loyal spectators would cheer their dear Dodgers towards victory. Throughout the years, Ebbets Field and the diverse populations that frequented it witnessed incredible triumphs on the baseball diamond, including one of the most important achievements in African American history.

Located in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, Ebbets Field was constructed in 1913, costing $750,000 to complete. Its home team was the Brooklyn Robins, renamed the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1932 . Interest in the Dodgers increased exponentially, requiring constant reconstruction of its stadium so that it accommodated fans from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. In essence, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the archetypal baseball team of a "New America," representing an ever-expanding population of New Yorkers.

In 1947 the General Manager of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, placed Jackie Robinson, a black man, on the Dodgers' roster, making him the first African American to ever break the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Robinson undoubtedly faced incredible levels of racism during the beginning stages of playing for the Dodgers, but in Robinson, Rickey found a player "with the guts not to fight back." During the years he spent with the Brooklyn Dodgers playing in Ebbets Field, Robinson proved that limitations could be transcended, opening the doors for other African American baseball players to soon join the major leagues years before Brown vs. Board of Education legally outlawed segregation.

The Dodgers were moved to Los Angeles in 1957, leaving an empty, decrepit baseball diamond in the middle of Flatbush that was finally demolished in 1960. To this day, the site of the former Ebbets Field is nothing but rubble, with housing projects built over the remains of the stadium. It is said by some that the state of Ebbets Field today is an "American tragedy," and one can only wonder if anyone will ever endow the site with a reminder of all the great accomplishments that took place there.

This entry was written by a Columbia University student enrolled in Art History W3897, African American Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries, taught by Professor Kellie Jones in 2008.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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Five Points was a neighborhood around the intersection of Worth Street, Baxter Street, and Cross Street, which no longer exists. It became a world-famous slum in the 1840s. In colonial times, however, it was a quiet place north of the city that included a pond, marshes, and a hill that overlooked it all. Africans buried their dead near the pond and lived nearby in a large area called "Land of the Blacks."

By the early 1800s, however, the city was growing and housing was needed. The hill was removed and its earth, along with garbage, dumped into the pond. Homes and businesses were built on this landfill, but the ground was soft and damp; the houses soon began to rot and topple, and the unpaved streets turned to mud. As the housing decayed, New York's first slum was born. Poor Irish and German immigrants moved in to live alongside the African Americans there.

The neighborhood became famous for crime and disease. But, more happily, it was also known for dance. Competitions between Irish and black musicians and dancers helped to invent a brand new dance form called tap dance.

Five Points was also where many abolitionist organizations were located. There was the Chatham Chapel, where black and white abolitionists met, and the African American Mutual Relief Hall. Churches such St. Philip's African Episcopal Church and the African Bethlehem Church were part of the Underground Railroad, as were many of the homes in the area. Five Points was a dangerous neighborhood, but it was also a safe haven for those fleeing slavery.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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Fort Amsterdam was designed to be a state-of-the-art diamond-shaped fort, built of stone and bristling with cannon. The designer warned against building it in haste. However, in 1625, the town was in desperate need of houses, so a much simpler fort was planned. It would be roughly a square of four simple brick walls, mounded over with dirt.

To build the fort, Peter Minuit needed laborers, and in 1626 he got just what he needed. The Dutch West India Company sent the first African "bondsmen" to New Amsterdam. Some of their names described their origins: Antony Congo, Paulo d'Angola, Pieter San Tome, Anthony the Portuguese, Jan Fort Orange. Many of the men had been captured from Spanish or Portuguese ships. They were experienced seamen who already understood some European languages, religions, and laws.

For 10 years the men worked to build the fort. They dug up tree stumps, hauled dirt, mounded it up over the fort walls, and battered it down firmly. Finally, the Africans covered the earthen walls of the fort with sod. But as soon as it was finished, the fort began to crumble. The settlers didn't usually fence their animals, so goats, sheep, and cattle strayed onto the weedy slopes to graze. Pigs went there to dig or rout in the dirt walls. In the words of one settler, the fort soon looked "like a molehill or a tottering wall." But the Africans were busy elsewhere. They had to dig ditches, clear land, plant and harvest crops, build houses, roads, and bridges, and load the Company's ships with thousands of pelts of beaver, mink, otter, and wildcat.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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Around the time of the American Revolution, everyone in New York knew Samuel Fraunces. He ran the best tavern in town, supported the patriot cause, and was a trusted aid to George Washington himself. His daughter, Phoebe, once saved the General's life when she foiled a plot to poison him. But today little is known about Samuel Fraunces--even his race is a bit of a mystery. He was called "Black Sam," but he was, and still is, described as being white, Negro, "colored," Haitian, and mulatto.

Samuel Fraunces came to New York City from the Caribbean and in 1762 opened what is now called Fraunces Tavern. From the start his tavern was famous for its great food and fine wines, but today Fraunces Tavern is known for the history that was made there: it's where New York's Sons of Liberty met and planned their own Boston-style tea party. After the group dumped English tea in the harbor, the British occupied the city, and Samuel Fraunces moved his family to safety in New Jersey. Then he signed up as a patriot soldier and fought with George Washington. He also spied for the patriot cause, gave money, and housed and fed American soldiers and prisoners. When the British finally sailed away, a great celebration in honor of "Evacuation Day" was held in the Fraunces Tavern. A week later, Washington made a famous farewell speech to his officers there.

After the war Washington thanked Fraunces for giving so much "...to the cause of our country and its independence and freedom," and Congress sent him a letter citing both his generous support of American prisoners and his secret service during the war. Samuel Fraunces died in 1795.

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Dressed as a sailor, Frederick Bailey stepped ashore a free man, but he was not safe until the great abolitionist David Ruggles took him into his home. In 1838, New York was crawling with slave catchers. Within days, Frederick sent for his fiancee, married, and moved to a safer city. Then he changed his name to Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Douglass was not only self-emancipated, he was self-educated too. As a boy, he started learning the alphabet on his own, which horrified his master. Reading and writing would make the boy unfit to be a slave. Thus, young Frederick grasped the importance of learning to read, and he began trading bread with poor white kids for lessons. He saved money to buy a book about freedom and liberty. He read secretly and learned how to write and speak well--very well. When William Lloyd Garrison heard Douglass speak, he asked him to lecture for the Anti-Slavery Society. And so began a new career for Douglass that would last a lifetime.

Douglass spoke against slavery, for women's rights, and for justice. He lectured across the country and in Europe. He spoke with presidents and world leaders. He was called one of the greatest speakers of the century. In addition, Douglass wrote books, articles, and essays that are still read today. And in 1847 he began publishing his own newspaper--The North Star--which broadcast his message to thousands of readers. He served as United States Marshal and Recorder of Deeds for the U.S. government and as Minister-General to the Republic of Haiti. Douglass continued lecturing and writing up until his death in 1895.

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by Manning Marable

by Robert O'Meally

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Harlem has been a black community for over 100 years. In that time it has been called the "Capital of Black America," the "Negro Culture Capital of the World," and even the "Promised Land."

Settlement of Harlem dates back to Dutch times when Africans cleared the land as well as the road that led to it from New Amsterdam, which lay 9 miles away. A bit later, the neighborhood was Irish, Jewish, and Italian. It was not until overbuilding caused vacancies that blacks were allowed to move in. That was in 1904, when a black real-estate agent named Philip A. Payton promised landlords that he could find renters if they would allow African Americans. The landlords agreed and several buildings were quickly filled. The white population began to flee, causing more vacancies and even more blacks to move in.

Some of the new tenants, such as Madame C. J. Walker, were wealthy. Others were writers such as Langston Hughes or painters such as Jacob Lawrence. Over time, more and more residents were poor, part of the Great Migration from the South. During that time, thousands of blacks left their homes, friends, and relatives in the South and migrated North to the Promised Land. By the 1920s, there were more African Americans per square mile in Harlem than in any other place on Earth. The gathering of poets, dancers, musicians, and artists then became known as the Harlem Renaissance.

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In the mid 1990s, author and community leader Geoffrey Canada conceived of a new vision for Harlem. After years of hard work with Harlem's Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, Canada felt that many children in poor communities were still slipping between the cracks. He decided to create a program that would uplift the entire neighborhood: the Harlem Children's Zone. Canada's program evolved into a unique organization that serves the children of Harlem with a comprehensive network of education, health, family, and housing programs. Today, the Harlem Community Zone serves a 100-block radius in the community, providing services to 13,000 children through its innovative programs.

Built in 2004, the $44 million Harlem Community Zone headquarters represents the collaboration of Canada and another leader in the African American community: the renowned African American architect, J. Max Bond Jr. Inspired by the local artistry he encountered during a trip to Tunisia as a young man, Bond's architecture integrates allusions to African style in a modernist aesthetic. He has achieved international acclaim for his work on projects such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Change and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Bond also contributed to the World Trade Center Memorial and Columbia University's Manhattanville project. In a time when black architects make up only 1.5 percent of the American Institute of Architects and black architectural firms receive 85 percent of their commissions from the state, Bond's achievements are remarkable.

The Harlem Children's Zone is an excellent example of Bond's modern aesthetic and belief in architecture's role in the community. His use of stylistic modernism underscores the Harlem Children's Zone's focus on community betterment. Bold colors, dynamic intersecting lines, and asymmetry offer a visual expression of uplift and change. Yet, Bond's principles of openness and approachability demonstrate that the Harlem Children's Zone is an integral part of the community. The glass windows that predominate the center's facade emphasize that the organization is engaged in a dialogue with its community. Likewise, the brick of the community center echoes the use of brick in the commercial buildings, residences, and churches of 125th Street.

This architectural project successfully combines the visions of J. Max Bond Jr. and Geoffrey Canada. The collaboration has produced not only a cultural landmark, but perhaps more significantly, a safe space for Harlem's children in need.

This entry was written by a Columbia University student enrolled in Art History W3897, African American Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries, taught by Professor Kellie Jones in 2008.

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The Harlem Community Art Center was created in November 1938. Its opening was attended by former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who welcomed the community's new hub for creativity. During its brief life, the Harlem Community Art Center had a tremendous impact. Many of its students became artists who took pride in their culture and community. Paintings created by students at the Center often depicted scenes of Harlem; it was as if the students looked out a window and drew what they saw in the street.

The Center was a place for the Harlem community to receive education in the arts for free or little charge. It was organized by the Works Progress Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and headed by Augusta Savage. Children and adults clamored to be part of the wide variety of art classes taught by teachers of varying ethnicities. The students were diverse as well, ranging from established Harlem painters to maladjusted children from the New York psychiatric hospitals who benefitted from the Center's creative activities.

Jacob Lawrence, the influential African American artist who depicts Harlem life in many of his paintings, attended programs at the Center and often taught classes. Lawrence also exhibited some of his work for fellow community members to view. The influence of the Center and its blending of art and the Harlem community can be seen in works like the "The Photographer," painted by Lawrence in 1942. In this painting, Lawrence depicts a black man photographing a wealthy black family in the middle of a crowded street in Harlem. This scene demonstrated that art was no longer a hobby of the rich and famous, but an activity of the everyday man, uniting people of every race and social status.

Although the Harlem Community Art Center only lasted for 16 short months, its mission inspired a new organization called the Harlem Arts Alliance. Located in the same building that housed the Harlem Community Art Center on 290 Lenox Avenue, the Harlem Arts Alliance continues to preserve and promote multi-ethnic and multi-cultural artists and art organizations in Harlem and surrounding communities.

This entry was written by a Columbia University student enrolled in Art History W3897, African American Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries, taught by Professor Kellie Jones in 2008.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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On a cold February afternoon in 1919, thousands of people gathered along New York's Fifth Avenue and swayed to music provided by military band leader James Reese. They cheered and clapped as the 369th Infantry Regiment marched to the new musical rhythm that was sweeping Europe and America: jazz. The 369th referred to themselves as the "men of bronze," but became better known as the "Harlem Hellfighters," because of their ferocity in battle. An all-black military unit, the regiment was under the command of mostly white officers. New York's Union League, led by Col. William Hayward, organized the "Colored Regiments" of the Civil War.

The Harlem Hellfighters fought the Germans at the battles of Belleau Wood and Chateau-Thiery. They distinguished themselves in combat, serving more than 6 months on the front lines while suffering more than 1400 casualties. It was the first American unit to be awarded France's highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre. One hundred and seventy of its men were awarded individual medals, including two who personally won the Croix de Guerre.

World War I brought about a great many changes that had a lasting impact on America, such as initiating the great migration of blacks from the South to the North. This was also the time of the assimilation of black music and culture into mainstream American culture known as the Harlem Renaissance. Approximately 380,000 blacks served in World War I, and many lost their lives. However, the sacrifices they made, like the sacrifices they made in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, did not give African Americans the freedom to participate fully in a free democratic society.

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Harriet Tubman, or "Moses" as some called her, was worth $40,000 to anyone who could capture her and return her south. It was a huge reward, but southern slave owners figured that she had stolen property worth at least $300,000. What did she steal? Some 300 enslaved men, women, and children, taking them on the Underground Railroad to freedom.

Harriet Tubman was born around 1822, the property of a planter in Maryland. As a child she worked in his house but was soon sent out to do backbreaking fieldwork. After three of her sisters were sold, it was rumored that she might be sold to the cotton fields farther south, too. She knew she had to flee or she would never see her family again; in 1849 she made her escape alone. As a self-emancipated woman, Harriet Tubman then did what few others dared to do. She went back south--19 times, for her sisters, brothers, their children, friends, neighbors, and in one daring trip, her 70-year-old parents.

A master of disguises who knew how to find her way in the woods without leaving tracks, she outsmarted the slave catchers and their dogs every time. As she told Frederick Douglass, she "never lost a single passenger." Her route took her through New York City, a "train depot" of the Underground Railroad. She and her passengers were hidden in local churches, homes, and offices and then sent on to Canada and freedom. Not even the Civil War stopped Harriet Tubman's efforts. She joined the Union cause as a nurse and a spy. After the abolition of slavery, Tubman kept working for freedom, justice, and equality until she died in 1913.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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In the spring of 1741, all eyes were on a tavern at the corner of Liberty and Trinity Streets. The tavern was on the waterfront then, and it was a meeting place for free and enslaved blacks as well as poor whites. It was illegal in those days for more than three slaves to meet unless they were working.

Trouble began after a burglary. The man charged with the crime was a slave called Caesar. When he was arrested at Hughson's Tavern, investigators thought that John Hughson and his wife Sarah (who were white) were trading in stolen goods. Mary Burton, Hughson's 16-year-old servant, was brought in for questioning. The investigators offered her a choice: She could tell all that she "knew" and gain freedom from being a servant, or go to prison. She chose the first option, and the Hughsons were quickly arrested. Then fires broke out--once there were four in one day. New Yorkers panicked, fearing the worst--another slave uprising. Again investigators turned to Mary Burton, and she again told them what they wanted to hear.

Mary claimed that Hughson's Tavern was a meeting place for blacks and whites plotting to burn the city, murder its inhabitants, and seize power. The slaves would become masters, she said, and Caesar, the thief, would become governor. Her story was incredible, but it was believed. In the hysteria of "The Great Negro Plot" almost half of the adult black male population was arrested and brought to trial. In the end, 17 blacks were hanged, as well as the Hughsons and 2 other whites. Thirteen Africans were burned at the stake, and 70 enslaved blacks were shipped to the Caribbean to be resold.

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In 1824, the aged Revolutionary War hero General Lafayette returned to America for a tour of the nation he had helped to forge. While in New York he asked to visit the African Free School. James McCune Smith was chosen to write and deliver the welcoming address. Smith was 11 years old.

Smith was a brilliant student who wanted to become a doctor. But there were no licensed black doctors in America then, so he was apprenticed to a blacksmith instead. As Smith worked the blacksmith's bellows with one hand, he held a Latin grammar in the other and continued to study. But when he applied to Columbia College (called Kings College then) he was turned down. So instead he went to one of the world's top medical schools in Great Britain. In five years he earned three degrees and graduated at the top of his class.

Upon his return to New York he opened a pharmacy at 93 West Broadway in 1837. Here he served both white and black patients in the front of the store. In the back, he met with fellow activists and conspired to end slavery in the South, to win the vote for blacks in New York, and to educate black youth. Together with abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith, and John Brown, he helped found the Radical Abolitionist Party. As the son of a self-emancipated mother, his pharmacy was a place where many escaping slaves found help. James McCune Smith worked for economic and social justice until his death in 1865, just a few weeks after passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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At the opening of the John Street Methodist Church, the priest addressed "those in the gallery," welcoming the African Americans. The segregated black worshipers could cook the food, clean the homes, and care for the children of the white worshipers, but they could not pray together with them. In other churches, the segregation was far worse. Some churches had "hidden galleries," small closed rooms out of sight. Other churches had "negro pews" in corners or over stairways. Black parishioners could not vote or preach, but they could offer their services in the form of labor.

At the John Street Church, African Peter Williams was a sexton. He probably dug the graves, swept the church, and kept up the grounds. James Varick was a deacon, a church officer who probably helped the priest give communion to the black worshipers--only after the whites had received communion.

Williams and Varick had attended the church since it was founded in 1766. This was a time of change. During the Revolution, British soldiers occupied the city. After that, General George Washington came to reclaim the city and the slaves that had fled to the British there. But the church's practice of segregation remained the same. Williams, Varick, and other black worshipers began to hold separate meetings. Then the group decided to form a separate church. In October of 1800, the African Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of Church and Leonard Streets was dedicated. It would become an enduring place of worship and struggle.

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In the hills and swamps that stretched across Manhattan Island one mile north of New Amsterdam, both free and enslaved blacks began to clear the tangle of trees, vines, and shrubs to build their own homes and plant their own gardens. The time was 1643, and the area would soon be called the Land of the Blacks.

The black settlement began during the Dutch wars with neighboring Indians. When raids began, the white settlers fled to the safety of New Amsterdam. Director-General Willem Kieft decided to replace the white settlers with black ones, as a buffer for the community. The first land grants were given to members of the black militia such as Domingo Anthony and "Captain of the Blacks" Manuel Trumpeter, or their widows, such as Catalina Anthony. The grants were sizeable, from eight to twelve acres each, enough land for a garden, crops, and pasture for their cattle, goats, and sheep. Orchards were planted and included trees of apples, peaches, plums, and cherries. The homes and barns were mostly wooden with roofs of thatch or board.

Many of those who gained land grants were elders who had won a status we know as half-freedom, but their children remained enslaved. Nevertheless, the farms were passed down through the generations, creating a strong black community that petitioned for their rights, married, baptized their children and, at least a century before the Underground Railroad, harbored runaways.

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by Kellie Jones

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One of the leading voices in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, Langston Hughes focused his writing on the realistic plight of black people. He authored more than 50 literary works covering all genres: poetry, fiction, autobiography, children's books, opera, and drama.

In his early years, Hughes was greatly influenced by W. E. B. Dubois and by his grandmother's stories about his grandfather, who took part in John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859 to arm the slaves.

Hughes attended Columbia University, dropping out in the early 1920s to "see the world." After returning to the United States, he won a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (graduating in 1929), where he was considered one of the most promising young poets of his generation.

A friend of Ernest Hemingway, Hughes continued to travel widely and made Harlem his permanent home in 1942.

Hughes, unlike many of the Harlem Renaissance writers, was able to support himself financially through his writing. His works included "Simple Speaks His Mind," featuring the witty and ironic street-smart Harlemite who commented on the everyday life of black people. His well-known poems such as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "The Weary Blues," and "Harlem" were meant to be read aloud; because of his use of rhythmical language, the poems were frequently set to music and actively engaged the audience. He had additional success on Broadway, where his 1935 play "The Mulatto" became a hit.

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The world's most famous jazz musician lived in modest Corona, Queens. Louis Armstrong was happy to get away from the fame and fans to return to his wife Lucille and his home. Upon returning, he might go outside and play a few notes on his famous coronet. This was a signal to the neighborhood kids that "Pops" was home. They would flock to his house and be taken for ice cream or enjoy a chat on the stoop. The Armstrongs were wealthy enough to live anywhere, but this was where they were happiest.

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901, in the poorest section of New Orleans. He began to play the coronet at a young age. His passion for music and his talent combined to make him one of the greatest musicians of the age. He not only changed the music the entire world listened to, he also appeared in over 30 movies and wrote two wonderful autobiographies. And he was not shy about speaking out for civil rights. "I won't play where I can't stay," he said. His wife Lucille also broke barriers. She was the first dark-skinned African American to dance professionally at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem.

Louis Armstrong died in 1971 and his wife, 12 years later. In her will, Lucille left the house to the City of New York to be made into a museum. A tour of the house today is like visiting the couple. You will even hear their voices as you enter the dining room or the den, because Louis recorded some of their conversations. On summer evenings the museum offers live concerts in the garden, just as the Armstrongs did.

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Lewis Latimer was born free in 1848; his parents George and Rebecca Latimer made sure of that. Before he was born, they fled enslavement for freedom in Massachusetts. Soon, however, George Latimer's owner arrived and had him arrested. Immediately 300 blacks, along with white abolitionists, surrounded the courthouse in protest. In the end George Latimer was free, as his children would be.

Young Lewis was able to go to school in Boston. He loved to read and draw, and he was determined to do well. When he was 16, Civil War broke out, and Latimer joined the Navy to fight for the Union. After the war, Latimer taught himself mechanical drawing and did the patent drawings for Alexander Bell's telephone. Latimer knew he could invent things, too. He went on to invent a longer-lasting light bulb, a toilet that worked on moving trains, an air cleaner used in hospitals, and an improved safety elevator, among other things. As an expert in electricity, he supervised the construction of lighting systems for New York and many other cities.

Latimer moved to New York in 1903 and bought a home in Flushing, Queens, where his two daughters grew up. His house was filled with culture. A true "Renaissance man," Latimer painted; wrote poems, plays, and music; and played the flute for friends and family. And until his death in 1928, he never stopped inventing. Today the Lewis H. Latimer House is a museum filled with Latimer's work and a member of the Historic House Trust.

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by Kenneth Jackson

by Kellie Jones

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Thought by many blacks to be another Moses, Marcus Garvey rose from humble beginnings in Jamaica, West Indies, to become the number one advocate of the "Back to Africa movement."

He left school at sixteen and went to work as an apprentice printer, organizing the printing workers in Kingston, Jamaica.

In 1917, he came to America and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), whose major goal was to create a strong Negro Nation in Africa. By 1920, the UNIA claimed more than 1 million members. In August of that year, their International Convention was held in New York City, where 25,000 people gathered to hear Garvey speak.

In 1923, Garvey was charged with and found guilty of using the mail service to defraud in connection with his fundraising to buy ships for the return to Africa. While imprisoned he wrote his famous "First Message to the Negroes of the World from Atlanta Prison," where he said: "Look to me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for liberty, freedom and life."

Garvey died in 1940 in London, England. He was named Jamaica's first national hero and buried in the National Heroes Park in Jamaica.

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Henry Minton, a tenor saxophonist and the first black delegate to Local 802 of the musicians' union, opened Minton's Playhouse in 1938. Located on 118th street at Saint Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, adjacent to the Hotel Cecil, the Playhouse was a frequent temporary residence of musicians passing through New York. In 1940, Minton hired big band musician Teddy Hill to organize the music policy for his club and help improve a lagging business. Hill quickly made Kenny Clarke the band leader, giving him full artistic license. Clarke in turn brought trumpeter Joe Guy, bassist Nick Fenton, and local pianist at the time Thelonius Monk into the group. It was then that Minton’s history as the playground of New York jazz and the birthplace of bebop began.

Because of Minton's connections to the union, musicians were able to experiment freely at the club without fear of being fined by the union delegate for playing without pay. Thus, musicians from nearby big band theaters like the Apollo and the Paramount made Minton's their after hours hotspot (the club was open until 4am), where musical experimentation and southern-style food was in abundance. Minton's was particularly famous for its Monday night gatherings - the official off-work day for professional musicians. It was this communal environment that encouraged the cross-fertilization of ideas that would breed bebop. The term, which both Thelonius Monk and Dizzy Gillespie claim to have coined, referred to the bebop's unusual stop and start form, which flourished during World War II.

Minton's continued to be a gravitational center of American Jazz post-war, as Europeans flocked to the site to visit a creative shrine. But as jazz (and bebop in particular) became more mainstream, performances migrated to the whiter areas of the city, and travel to Minton's dwindled. In 1974, the club closed its doors. For the next 30 years, jazz enthusiasts and entrepreneurs alike attempted to reopen the legendary playhouse, but were unsuccessful. But on May 19, 2006 the club finally reopened - in its original location - under Earl Spain's management. While the club continues to host Monday night jam sessions in honor of the playhouse's glory days, the original spirit of Minton's was truly one-of-a-kind.

This entry was written by a Columbia University student enrolled in Art History W3897, African American Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries, taught by Professor Kellie Jones in 2008.

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In the late 1700s, the Methodists of the mostly white John Street Church welcomed Africans and their descendents, and many came to worship there. Peter Williams, born a slave, became a sexton and James Varick became a deacon of the church. In time, however, the worshipers in the Negro pews grew frustrated. They wanted to speak out against slavery and to worship as equals. Finally, in 1796, James Varick led a group of about 100 worshipers to an old rented building on Cross Street to worship separately. This congregation would found the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the first black church in the state.

By 1800, the group moved into a small wooden building at the corner of Church and Leonard Streets. The church thrived, and by 1820, Mother Zion had a new brick building. That same year the leaders voted to leave the White Methodist Episcopal Church because it would not ordain black bishops. James Varick became the first Bishop of the new church. It was a time when more and more black New Yorkers were gaining their freedom. These newly free African Americans were determined to end slavery in the South and racism in the North. The AME Church played a big part in the activism of that time. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad and many who worshiped there, such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, became leaders and abolitionists.

As African Americans moved uptown, so did the church. Today Mother AME Zion Church is located at 140-7 W. 137th Street in Harlem.

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With the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War began to be more about black freedom. Many New Yorkers were not happy about this--especially poor whites and immigrants. Newspapers of the time warned that great masses of former slaves would pour into northern cities looking for work. Then on July 11, the Conscription Act of 1863 took effect. The act made all male citizens between 20 and 35 and all unmarried men between 20 and 45 subject to military duty. However, anyone who could pay $300 could avoid service. Blacks were not considered citizens and were exempt.

The growing fear and anger turned to violence, and the worst riot in the history of the city began. The first targets were military and government buildings, but by afternoon the white mobs began to turn on blacks. A nine-year-old boy was attacked, and then the mob stormed the Colored Orphan Asylum, burning the great four-story building to the ground. The violence soon moved to the docks, where a predominantly Irish mob attacked more than 100 black longshoremen, killing several. For five days, the battle raged across Manhattan from the Battery to the Upper East Side, until President Lincoln sent troops to the city to restore order.

The cost of the riot was incredible. As many as 100 people were killed. More than 100 buildings were burned, and many more were damaged and looted. Many blacks fled Manhattan, and the riots drove a wedge between black and white workers that lasted through the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

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In 1996, Pope John Paul II bestowed the title of "Venerable" on Pierre Toussaint. Two years later, Pierre Toussaint Square was named for him. This man, who was brought to New York as a slave in 1787, may soon become the first Haitian saint.

Toussaint was raised as a slave in the household of Jean Berard, a family of devout Catholics who taught him both reading and writing. When the family fled the revolution on their island, they brought Pierre and his sister Rosalie with them. Pierre was immediately apprenticed to a hairdresser, and went on to become one of the best in the city. At that time, wealthy women would spend $1000 a year on their hairdos, so Toussaint was able to make very good money. But what he did with his money is more extraordinary.

When his master died, Toussaint supported his mistress. He bought his sister's freedom rather than his own, so that she could marry and bear free children. He bought his future wife's freedom and helped many other slaves to buy theirs. He donated money to his beloved Church, to ministers and nuns, to orphans white and black, and to countless other causes. Not only did he donate money, but he also visited the sick and nursed them during yellow fever epidemics when no one else dared to.

Upon his death in 1853, the city mourned him, the papers eulogized him, and the great Revolutionary leader General Philip Schuyler said of him, "I have known Christians who were not gentlemen or gentlemen who were not Christians--but one man I know who is both--and that man is Black."

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The Ralph Ellison Memorial at Riverside Park on 150th Street, Manhattan New York is not your typical African American landmark in New York City. Unlike the African Burial Ground or the Jackie Robinson Recreational Center, this memorial is not guarded by walls or cluttered with brochures and desks, ticket prices and tellers, student groups and security guards. The site, in contrast, is completely free and public. Located at the end of a one-way street between two busy roads and set within a collection of bustling Harlem apartment buildings and bodegas, the site offers a visual and atmospheric contrast; a place where New York urbanity meets the tranquil Hudson River.

Designed to celebrate the legacy of African American scholar and writer Ralph Waldo Ellison, the memorial is positioned directly across Ellison's last and permanent home at 730 Riverside drive and placed in Riverside Park where he was said to stroll and jive during his creative lifetime. Distinguished African American artist Elizabeth Catlett designed the sculpture commemorating Ellison, using a 15 foot high, 7 1/2 foot wide piece of bronze to depict a cutout silhouette of a man. In interviews Catlett later explained, "I was thinking, he wrote the Invisible Man, so why don't I do an invisible man, since it was the idea of a positive and a negative shape, that's why I did it." Alongside the sculpture, a low-lying pink granite wall offers quotations from Ellison's writing and inscriptions of biographical details.

Today, the Ralph Ellison Memorial sheds significant historical light on the African American experience. The site houses an art piece that embodies the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement led by renowned black artists in the early 20th century who demanded racial equality and just liberation of black Americans on social, political, and economic levels through the production of art, music, and literature. Inspired by Ellison's landmark 1947 novel, Invisible Man, the sculpture represents the struggles of confronting racist stereotypes and promoting social integration in America.

This entry was written by a Columbia University student enrolled in Art History W3897, African American Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries, taught by Professor Kellie Jones in 2008.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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On March 5, 1864, a crowd of over 10,000 New Yorkers watched in awe as 1,000 well-disciplined Union army troops left Rikers Island and marched west to the Hudson River, their dark blue uniforms and crisp white gloves and white leggings glistening in the sunlight.

What made this event so unusual was that the soldiers were black.

The 20th Colored Regiment was formed by the New York Union League, who hoped to present the black troops as part of the New Society that would take place once the South was defeated and the country united. George Bliss, a prominent member of the Union League who later became the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York City, led the effort to raise money for the formation of New York's three black regiments.

The troops received their training at Rikers Island before being sent to Louisiana. The 20th and the 26th Regiments were part of the 180,000 black soldiers and sailors who served the Union cause. These troops were paid less than half of their white counterparts' salaries, received inferior equipment, and lived in poor conditions.

Near the end of 1864, Rikers Island was transformed from a camp where soldiers were sent for temporary duty and training to a prisoner of war facility for Confederate soldiers.

The city of New York purchased the island in 1884 from the Riker family, who had settled it in 1638. Today it is New York City's largest jail facility.

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On February 23, 1828, Captain John Jackson purchased land in a place known as Sandy Ground on what is now Staten Island. He was the first African American known to own property on Staten Island. When other freed families followed him, the rural village became something incredibly rare in the nation--a free black community. It was called Harrisville at first, and then Little Africa, and finally Sandy Ground. It was mostly a farming community until 1841, when oyster gatherers, fleeing violence in the Baltimore area, arrived. The town was located on the southwestern shore of Staten Island, and rich oyster beds were within walking distance.

The community grew into a place of well-maintained homes surrounded by fenced cropland. The Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1850, became the center of the community and probably a major stop on the Underground Railroad. There was a Sandy Ground School, and in 1855, the Union Free School became the second public school on Staten Island to accept black students.

Today, descendants of Sandy Ground settlers still worship at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and visitors can view a collection of photographs, letters, quilts and other artifacts at the Sandy Ground Historical Society Museum and Library.

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by Kellie Jones

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The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture holds one of the best library collections focused on black history in the world. The collection was begun by a young black man newly arrived from Puerto Rico named Arturo Alfonso Schomburg. Arthur Schomburg (1874-1938), as he was called, worked as an elevator operator, bellhop, porter, and printer. On his own time he followed his passion: reading, writing, and collecting everything he could on the history of Africans and their descendants. It was said that Schomburg had a fifth-grade teacher who told him "Black people have no history, no heroes, no great moments." He would prove that teacher very wrong.

Schomburg arrived in New York City at the age of 17 and became part of the exciting scene known as the Harlem Renaissance. Here he continued adding books, photographs, artwork, sheet music, newspapers, pamphlets, and memoirs to his growing collection.

In 1926 his whole incredible collection was sold to the 135th Street branch library. Even then Schomburg continued to add to it, often using his own money. When he began serving as curator at the library in 1932, he was able to reach out to young scholars. Schomburg told one scholar, "What you're calling African history, Negro history, are the missing pages of World history." After Schomburg's death in 1938, the library was renamed in his honor.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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As a community of free black property owners, Seneca Village was unique in its day. It was located in the hilly, rock-strewn woods between 82nd and 89th Streets and 7th and 8th Avenues. At that time it was a long walk to the crowded city. The village grew steadily from 1825, when Andrew Williams first bought three lots for $125. By 1832, about 25 more lots were sold to African Americans. And by the early 1850s, the village boasted three churches, a school, and a population of some 300 people. Over the years, German and Irish immigrants joined the community. This diverse community lived in peace, attending the All Angel's Church together and sharing the services of one midwife.

But as the city pushed north, the media began to paint a different picture of the little village, calling it a "shantytown" and calling the property owners "squatters" who were "wretched and debased." Many people in the city, including Mayor Fernando Wood, wanted the land for a great new park. In 1855, the mayor used the power of eminent domain to claim the land. Then he sent the police to clear it. For two years the residents resisted the police as they petitioned the courts to save their homes, churches, and schools. In 1857, they were finally removed. As one newspaper put it, the raid upon Seneca Village would "not be forgotten...[as] many a brilliant and stirring fight was had during the campaign. But the supremacy of the law was upheld by the policeman's bludgeons."

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The Shiloh Presbyterian Church boasts a long tradition of radical black leadership. It was founded as the First Colored Presbyterian Church by Samuel Cornish in 1822. Cornish helped found Freedom's Journal, the nation's first black newspaper. Its second pastor, Theodore Wright, was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and its third pastor was the fiery Henry Highland Garnet. All three were great thinkers, speakers, and leading abolitionists.

From its founding, the Shiloh Church was part of the Underground Railroad. Under Garnet, the Shiloh congregation found new ways to fight slavery. He called for boycotts of sugar, cotton and rice because they were products of slave labor. Garnet was passionate in his hatred for slavery. He was raised in slavery until he escaped with his family at the age of 9. Years later slave-catchers kidnapped his sister. Even though she was rescued, Garnet remained enraged. Convinced that talking would never change the minds of slave owners, he was among the first to call for an uprising. "Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties" he said. "Now is the day and the hour...Rather die freemen than live to be slaves." Years later, when John Brown was hung for leading an armed slave uprising in Virginia, Garnet held a large memorial for him at the Shiloh Church.

As blacks in New York moved north, so did the Shiloh Church until members of the congregation founded St. James Presbyterian Church located in Harlem today.

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In the early 1700s, New York had one of the largest slave populations of any of England's colonies. One out of every five New York residents was enslaved.

Slavery in New York differed from some of the colonies because there were no large plantations. Many of the enslaved Africans were skilled workers, carpenters, stone masons, fishermen, and boat builders.

These slaves lived and worked next to free and indentured whites, and some intermarried when they got their freedom.

No one knows for certain what caused the revolt that happened the night of April 6, 1712, but this much is known: Between 20 and 70 armed Africans set fire to a building. When white settlers tried to put out the fire, they were attacked, resulting in the death of nine whites and injury to eight others.

Militia units from Westchester and lower New York put down the insurrection. Seventy slaves and free blacks were jailed and 43 were put on trial. Eighteen were acquitted and 25 convicted, resulting in 20 being hanged and three burned at the stake.

This uprising resulted in the passage of even tougher slave codes by the New York State legislature, giving slave owners great leeway in meting out punishment to enslaved Africans.

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In 1797, a baby girl named Isabella was born in upstate New York. Her parents were Elizabeth and James Baumfree, but she was the property of their Dutch master, who sold her off at the age of 9. By the time she was 12, she had been sold two more times. When slavery was outlawed in New York, Isabella was 30 years old, the mother of four surviving children, and finally free to leave. She reached New York City in 1829 and joined the Mother AME Zion Church. Known as a preacher and prophet, she spent 14 years in the city before suddenly declaring, "The Spirit calls me there and I must go." That day in 1843 she left to travel the land and spread the Lord's word as Sojourner Truth.

Sojourner Truth traveled throughout New England and as far west as Kansas. When she spoke, everyone listened--even the hecklers. She gave her most famous speech at a women's rights convention in Ohio. As one there remembered it, the hecklers were hissing but, "At her first word there was a profound hush." When one man called women "weak," Truth looked him in the eye and in her low voice said, "I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well -- and ain't I a woman?" Another time she stopped the hissing with "...we'll have our rights; see if we don't: and you can't stop us from them; see if you can. You may hiss as much as you like, but it is comin'."

A legend in her own time, Sojourner Truth died in 1883 in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her funeral was said to be the largest ever seen there.

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by Kellie Jones

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As the black worshipers grew frustrated with the church's refusal to condemn slavery or end the segregation, they began to meet separately, forming the Free African Church of St. Philip. In 1818, skilled carpenters among the group built a small wood church on Centre Street, near Worth. The church immediately became a center of mutual aid and anti-slavery activities as well as of worship. It grew to become one of the largest black congregations in New York, in spite of fires, racist attacks, and riots. After a fire burned the wooden church, a brick one was built. It survived a riot of 1834, when the church organ, furniture, and much of the building was destroyed by a white mob. It was attacked again during the Civil War Draft Riot, and the police used St. Philip's as a barracks for militia and police as they battled thousands of enraged whites for control of the city.

As New York grew and blacks moved north, the church moved, too, first to 25th Street and finally to 134th Street in 1910. There, St. Philip's continues its tradition of worship as well as its work for social and economic justice.

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by Kellie Jones

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From before this nation was formed, Africans and their descendants have contributed enormously to American culture. But for hundreds of years, they were largely excluded from or overlooked by museums and galleries. The Studio Museum in Harlem was founded to change that. Founded in 1968, its mission has been to serve as "the nexus for black artists locally, nationally, and internationally, and for work that has been inspired by black culture." It remains the only museum of its kind in the world.

It all began in a rented loft on 125th street. From its beginnings it was more than a museum; it was an exciting place to be. It was a place where black artists could come and work, experiment, see the work of other black artists, and show their work to the public. Through a program called the Artists-In-Residence program, 3 artists per year receive art materials, a stipend (allowance), and space to create their work. The artists work with all types of media including painting, printmaking, sculpture, digital art, photography, sound, and video. Then they exhibit their work in the museum's galleries at the end of the program.

The SMH also shows work from their permanent collection--a growing body of work that has been donated or purchased over the years. This collection includes the work of well-known artists such as Jacob Lawrence. The Museum also holds beautiful photographs by James Van Der Zee, who chronicled the Harlem community from 1906 to 1984.

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Lewis and Arthur Tappan were brothers who earned a fortune importing silk from Asia. In 1841, Lewis went on to form the Mercantile Agency. Today it is known as Dun and Bradstreet, a billion-dollar corporation.

At that time, more and more white New Yorkers were in favor of ending slavery, but very few were for equal rights. The Tappans were different. They demanded "universal liberty." Whites, such as the Tappans, who spoke out for equality were hated and often targeted. During the riots of 1834, pro-slavery mobs attacked the Tappans repeatedly. First the Chatham Chapel, which the brothers rented for abolitionist meetings, was attacked. The next day Lewis's home was attacked; his belongings were piled in the street and burned. Then Arthur's store was attacked--twice. A year later a $100,000 reward was offered to anyone who delivered the dead bodies of the Tappans to any slave state. The only protection Lewis relied on was the Bible in his breast pocket. Both brothers drew on their faith for strength and continued their abolitionist work.

Working with African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Samuel Cornish, and Henry Highland Garnet, the brothers accomplished many things. They helped found the New York Anti-Slavery Society and were actively part of the Underground Railroad. Lewis organized the defense for the Africans of the slave ship Amistad. The brothers also gave money to integrated colleges, abolitionist newspapers, and many other anti-slavery organizations. Arthur Tappan died in 1865, the year that the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery. Lewis Tappan died 8 years later.

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On an August day in 1664, the Dutch ship Gideon reached the Great Dock in New Amsterdam. Its long journey had begun in the Netherlands, where it took on board wrist and ankle shackles, and other supplies for its mission. Its first stop was Angola, Africa, where the captain was directed to "as quickly as possible, take on board as many slaves as he can conveniently transport," along with copper and elephant tusks. The ship then crossed the ocean to the Caribbean, where it delivered slaves and the other "cargo," before proceeding to New Amsterdam. It arrived at the Great Dock with 291 Africans. To date, this was the largest shipment of enslaved men, women, and children to the Dutch colony. The Dutch West India Company relied on Africans to build homes, fortifications, and even the Great Dock. It was Africans who unloaded the Gideon.

Before the Gideon could be loaded again, British warships arrived. Without a single shot being fired, New Amsterdam became New York, and about 150 Dutch soldiers marched onto the Gideon to sail home.

The English took possession of a town with a population of about 1,500 whites, 300 slaves, and 75 freedmen. The largest slave owner was the Dutch West India Company, which had granted some of the older Africans a kind of half-freedom and plots of land. The Land of the Blacks was a group of 8-to-12-acre farms north of the town. The English were quick to question the freedom of these blacks and their landholdings. As difficult as life was for the Africans under the Dutch, it was about to get harsher.

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The Manhattan Company was formed to bring fresh water to New Yorkers. Or at least that was its stated purpose. What the founders really wanted to do was to open a bank. In the end they did both. The Bank of the Manhattan Company, founded in 1799, was a huge success. Today it is known as JP Morgan Chase. The company's mission to deliver fresh water to New Yorkers was not as successful, however.

The city in 1800 reached as far north as Chambers Street. Above that were widely spaced homes and farms along dirt roads. There were also slaughterhouses and places where animal hides were tanned--both very smelly businesses, located near what was once a supply of good fresh water called the Collect Pond.

The plan was to build a waterworks on Reade Street near the pond and pump the water around the city through a network of log pipes. It was a big job. About 25 miles of pipe had to be laid. The streets were paved with heavy cobblestones, which had to be torn up. Then a deep trench was dug and the hollowed pine logs -- each 13 feet long and 13 inches in diameter -- were laid in the trench and pounded together. Sand and earth were placed back in the trench, and any leftover dirt was carted away.

The laborers made one dollar a day, but if the worker was enslaved, his or her earnings went to the owner. At that time enslaved men and women were sometimes sent to the Slave Market at the end of Wall Street to hire themselves out. There were many free Africans in the city, too, but it was harder for them to get good-paying jobs.

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In 1711, New York was growing quickly, and the growing needs of the city were often supplied by slave labor. Nearly 1,000 out of about 6,400 New Yorkers were black, and at least 40 percent of the white households included a slave. In these homes, enslaved workers cooked, washed, sewed, hauled water, emptied the chamber pots, swept out the fireplaces and the chimneys, and cared for the children. Along the East River they built, loaded, and unloaded, the ships. They cleared the land uptown, and then planted and harvested the crops. And up and down the narrow streets they pedaled their master's goods and even supplied the city's first fast foods--fresh oysters and steaming hot corn on the cob.

As the number of slaves imported into the city soared, barrel makers, butchers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and tin workers began to purchase young enslaved men in order to teach them their trades. Typically, when a slave owner ran out of work, they hired their slaves out at half the rate of free labor.

Often the slaves themselves were sent out to find work. In a time when fear of a slave uprising was ever-present, the sight of so many enslaved men walking the streets looking to be hired caused alarm. Fearful white citizens began to complain. They demanded a market where slaves could be hired, bought, and sold. Finally, on December 13, 1711, the City Council passed a law "that all Negro and Indian slaves that are let out to hire...be hired at the Market house at the Wall Street Slip..." This market, known as the Meal Market (because grains were sold there), was located at the foot of Wall Street on the East River. It was the city's first slave market.

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One day in the mid-1800s, 28 men, women, and children snuck into New York City. They were runaways, escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. Theodore Wright and his friend Charles Ray spent the day getting food for them, as well as passage on a barge to Albany. From there, all 28 fled to Canada, where they could live free. Wright helped many slaves to freedom, but there are few documents that tell about his work, since it was illegal.

Theodore Sedgwick Wright was born in 1797 and educated at the African Free School. He went on to become the first black graduate of the Princeton Theological Seminary. Wright was born free, but he hated slavery and did everything in his power to fight it. His home was a station on the Underground Railroad, and he spoke out against slavery from the pulpit of his church on Prince Street. He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and president of the New York Committee of Vigilance. To belong to abolitionist societies at that time took courage. During the riots of 1834, white toughs attacked the offices and homes of abolitionists, breaking and burning everything they could lay their hands on.

As slavery was in the process of being abolished in New York, Wright was one of the first to speak out against racism. At an anti-slavery convention of both white and black delegates, he boldly stated, "It is an easy thing to ask about the vileness of slavery, but to treat the man of color in all circumstances as a man and brother -- that is the test." Wright died in 1847, as slavery was spreading to the West.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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A gang of black men labored as long as daylight allowed, digging a three-foot-deep trench from the East River all the way across Manhattan Island to the Hudson River. The trench followed a rough path that ran along the north edge of the village. It was March 1653, and Governor Stuyvesant had been sent orders to fortify New Amsterdam. English warships were gathering in Boston Harbor, readying to sail south and take the Dutch colony.

The men digging the trench had names such as Paulo d'Angola, Simon Congo, and Anthony Portuguese. As their names showed, many were Africans who had worked aboard Spanish or Portuguese ships before the Dutch seized them. These Africans were owned by the Dutch West India Company, but some had gained a form of half-freedom. They worked for themselves, but owed the company labor whenever needed. Half-free or enslaved, they could own property, testify in court, bear arms in emergencies, attend church, and marry. But their children were not free.

When the Africans finished the trench, they formed a wall by standing big logs into it. Each log was 18 inches around and 12 feet long. Then they pounded dirt and stones back into the trench around the base of each log to make the wall strong. They built blockhouses at the ends of the wall, and gates were added where roads ran through it. But as soon as the wall was finished, it was no longer needed. The Netherlands and England had signed a peace treaty. However, the wall built by the Africans gave the rough path that eventually became a street with a new name--Wall Street.

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by Kenneth Jackson

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Far from the bustle and racism of Manhattan, on what was then the outskirts of Brooklyn, free blacks built a community called Weeksville. The community began when a black longshoreman from Virginia, James Weeks, bought a plot of land in 1838, just 11 years after slavery ended in New York State. Soon others followed and built schools, churches, an orphanage, and an old-age home. Black-owned businesses grew and one of the country's first African American newspapers, Freedman's Torchlight, was published. The community boasted the first black female physician in the state and the first black police officer in the city. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad and, after the Civil War Draft riots of 1863, a refuge for black families fleeing the racist violence that spread across Manhattan.

By 1968 Weeksville and its history were largely forgotten until historian James Hurley and pilot Joseph Haynes set out to find it--from the air. Remarkably they found four small buildings, overgrown and dilapidated, but original. Then Joan Maynard, an artist and member of the community, got involved. She was determined to restore the homes as a museum. With her leadership and lots of community support, the buildings became New York City landmarks and were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1968, and $3 million later, Maynard saw the first building restored and opened to the public. Today The Heritage Center is located at 1698 Bergen Street between Rochester and Utica Avenues.

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Many slaves brought the tradition of African outdoor ceremonies to the Caribbean. However, once enslaved, they were prohibited from holding public celebrations despite their slaveholders' engagement in street parades like Mardi Gras. Once freed, ex-slaves began their own street celebrations, combining elements of African and European culture. Costumes for these celebrations became larger and more spectacular as the parades became louder and wilder, infused with musical rhythms. As Caribbean people migrated to North America, they brought with them this new type of carnival.

During the 1920s in New York, a Trinidadian immigrant, Ms. Jesse Waddle, began to organize a carnival celebration to take place before Lent in the months of February or March. Due to New York's cold winter weather, these celebrations originally occurred indoors at places like the Savoy, the Renaissance, and the Audubon Ballroom. Eventually, the indoor locations became a problem because of their confinements on the movement and freedom that defined the carnival. Waddle applied for and received a street parade permit in the 1940s and shifted the celebrations to a warmer time of year, Labor Day.

The Harlem permit was revoked in 1964 due to a violent riot. Five years later, a committee organized by Trinidadian Carlos Lezama obtained another permit for a parade on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. The parade has been held there ever since, beginning at Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue and ending at Grand Army Plaza. Under the guidance of the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, the parade, now known as the West Indian Day Parade, has expanded and grown into one of the biggest parades of the New York City, attracting 4 million spectators and participants from around the world.

Costumes and, particularly, face masks are more elaborate every year at the West Indian Day Parade. Participants invest both money and time to come up with themes, costumes, and floats for the festivities. Face masks, which are often very large in size, come in a wide variety of styles inspired by natural and spiritual elements, mythical creatures, political events, and popular culture. The artistic and historical value of the parade cannot be denied and outstanding costumes are recognized with various prizes. Most importantly, though, the parade displays participants' pride in their country, heritage, and culture.

This entry was written by a Columbia University student enrolled in Art History W3897, African American Art in the 20th and 21st Centuries, taught by Professor Kellie Jones in 2008.