Anti-Racism Presentations (on-line):

FREE TO BE

On Tuesday 22 Feb we presented: Free to Be: The African American Presence in New York City 1900 - 1950
Dr. Deidre B. Flowers, A’Lelia Bundles Scholar, Columbia University

“Free to Be” explores the experiences and contributions of African Americans to early twentieth century life in New York City. I investigate issues that affected the lives NYC’s Black citizens were able to live based on the effects of employment and education opportunities, social issues, and living conditions. This talk is contextualized by historical events including the Harlem Renaissance, the New Negro movement, freedom struggles, the world wars, and the Great Depression.

You can still view the presentation: click here.

LOVELY, DARK, AND LONLEY

Concert: Lovely dark and Lonely: music by African-American Composers

African-American baritone and music-historian Richard Hodges, accompanied by Tabitha Johnson, performed a concert program of works by African-American composers from the late 19th to the mid 20th century. Composers include Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912), Florence B. Price (1887-1953), Mark Fax (1911-1974), and Margaret Bonds (1913-1972).

To view the concert click here.

Thursday 25 Feb at 7pm: Professor John Singler, New York University

African Americans in New York City: The First 150 Years. In order to understand the role of African Americans in shaping New York City, we need to go back to the very beginning. As long as there has been a New York City, there have been African Americans here. The present talk looks at colonial New Amsterdam/New York. In the Dutch era, “half-free” African Americans were allotted farms along Minetta Creek in the Village. In the English era, slaveholding became so widespread that, of all American cities, only Charleston, South Carolina, had a greater percentage of households with at least one enslaved person.

This event, the first of two talks curated by our Anti-Racism Committee, is by YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itf2ymvaBg4), with presentation for about 45 minutes, followed by 10 to 15 minutes for questions and discussionent,

The second talk is:
Precarious Freedom: African Americans in Antebellum New York
A talk on African American History in New York City

Professor Gunja SenGupta - Monday 22 March at 7pm
Live Streamed via YouTube

What did freedom mean to Black New Yorkers in an era of mounting sectional conflict? This talk will take the audience on a tour of neighborhoods and dockyards, schools and churches, newspaper columns and civil rights conventions, and of almshouses and juvenile reformatories in a quest to illuminate the full panoply of African American history from emancipation through the New York City draft riots.