…had been absorbed into the public school system. Playbill from the African Grove Theatre (1821); via NYPL 4. The First Known Black Theater Troup, the African Grove Theater The African Grove…
Read More…African-American colleges and African American studies (DuBois himself would teach the very first course in African American history just feet from here at The New School in 1948). DuBois reported…
Read More…from the organizations, institutions, and stores that still exist today. But it is much harder to trace the African-American community that called the Village home from the 1860s through the…
Read More…abolitionist made an impact internationally, reverberating far beyond the Greenwich Village neighborhood from which he emerged. To learn more about Little Africa, the African Free School, the African Grove Theatre,…
Read More…of the New York Manumission Society, an organization devoted to the full abolition of African slavery. Drawing of African Free School No. 2 At the time of the African Free…
Read More…Rights and Social Justice Map. Want to learn about more civil rights and social justice sites in our neighborhoods? Check out our map. Sources: https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/history/ https://www.nyhistory.org/web/africanfreeschool/history/philosophy.html http://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15052coll5/id/31512 http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/african-free-school-opens-new-york-city https://www.jstor.org/stable/274931?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://maap.columbia.edu/place/9…
Read More…in the history of the United States. After the riots, approximately one-fifth of New York’s African American population left the city. Explore this and other key moments of African American…
Read More…deadly 1863 Draft Riots. Our Greenwich Village Historic District Map + Tours offers an African American tour with 25 sites in the Greenwich Village Historic District connected to significant African…
Read More…Shakespeare performed at the African Grove Theater, would go on to be the only actor of African-American descent to be honored at the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in England. The theater…
Read More…Village designation report entitled “Little Africa.” The South Village’s “Little Africa” community was the largest African-American settlement in New York throughout much of the 19th century, and lasted through the…
Read More…the name of Little Africa, the neighborhood that was centered around Minetta Lane was a key part of African American life in Manhattan up to the first decade of the…
Read More…as a licensed doctor; Henry Highland Garnet, a leading abolitionist and the first African American to address Congress; Ira Aldridge, the most famous African American actor of his era; Mathematician,…
Read MoreJames Hewlett as Richard III in a c. 1821 production. Hewlett, an actor who got his start at the African Grove Theater, was one of the most famous African-American actors…
Read More…C. Floyd to support African American culture. Kenkeleba began its work on The Bowery near Delancey Street with experimental projects to assist African American, Caribbean, and African artists in developing…
Read MoreThis February is African American History Month, a time to highlight and celebrate the rich history of African American struggle, success, and life in our neighborhoods over the last four…
Read More…looking at their significance to African-American history and the Civil Rights Movement. Little Africa undated photo Probably the area most associated with Black History in the Village is the former…
Read More…African Americans in general and African-American actors in particular. In the late 1950s he co-organized with Godfrey Cambridge and Maya Angelou fundraisers for Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Village…
Read More…predominantly African American in the 19th century and known to be home to many African American musicians. It is a coincidence that Gay Street is located just one block from…
Read More…the first non-native settlers of the area, and in the mid-to-late 19th century its “Little Africa” community was the largest African American community in the city. But finding evidence of…
Read MoreOff the Grid has previously taken a look at African American history in the South Village, which was home to almost a quarter of the city’s African-American population during the…
Read More…to some remarkably consequential events, places, and figures in African-American history. To help explore just some of them, we have created a new African American History Guided Tour on our…
Read More…Off the Grid blog posts: Spring Street Presbyterian Church (an early abolitionist congregation) Marking African-American History Month in the Village African Americans in the South Village Civil War Draft Riots…
Read More…and American rule, and its eventual abolition; how voting rights and other civil rights evolved and were won by and for African Americans in our city; the flowering of African…
Read More…written by Andrew Dolkart, contains extensive information about the African-American history of the South Village here and here. Read more about “Little Africa” here. Read the New York City landmark…
Read More…as by the mid-to-late 19th century, Greenwich Village was home to the “Little Africa” neighborhood, the largest African American community in New York and the center of African American life in…
Read MoreJune is named African-American Music Appreciation Month. But insofar as it is hard to conceive of genres of American music that have not been fundamentally shaped or originated by Black…
Read More…St. Benedict the Moor opened, the South Village was known as Little Africa, and was home to New York City’s largest Black population. The community was centered around Minetta Street and…
Read More…search of a better life as so many other southern African Americans did during the first wave of the Great Migration, and it’s with Harlem that Bearden is most closely…
Read More…Illustrated Newspaper.” Source: Library of Congress In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole became only the second African American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. (Another Rebecca, Rebecca…
Read More…the former home of Leontyne Price Ms. Price was one of the first internationally recognized African-American opera stars. Her career broke through racial barriers at a time when the United…
Read More…African American citizens, and a crusader for abolition, equality, and voting rights for African Americans. Mayor de Blasio refused to support landmark designation of the site. With the building having…
Read More…also serves as an obvious reminder that a site is historically significant. For African American History month, we’re taking a look at a number of historic plaques we’ve placed throughout…
Read More…this site and over one hundred sites connected to Civil Rights and Social Justice history, LGBTQ History, African American History, and Latinx History in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and…
Read More…was the founding congregation of the Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, which now has congregation across the African diaspora of North America and the Caribbean. Originally located in Lower Manhattan,…
Read More…as the Spring Street Presbyterian Churhc; theaters such as William Brown’s African Grove Theatre, an African-American owned and operated theater that presented productions with an African-American cast; and schools such…
Read More…for an African-American audience and for African-American children, and what would become the American Civil Liberties Union, among many other entities. Following a campaign led by Village Preservation, the building…
Read More…national headquarters of the African Civilization Society and the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum. Weeksville also was home to some extraordinary African-American leaders. Susan Smith McKinney Steward was the first African-American…
Read More…found in the East Village and NoHo, starting with a theater group in the early 19th century. African Grove Theater The African Grove Theater was the first known black theater…
Read More…organization advocating tot the civil rights of African Americans in the United States. During the first decade of the 20th Century, the rate of lynchings of African Americans, particularly men,…
Read More…courtesy of NYPL Digital Collections. The Crisis placed a special emphasis upon education, promoting the rise of African-American colleges and African American studies. Du Bois and The Crisis also had a notable…
Read More…records), a theater known as the African Grove Theater. The African Grove Theater was founded by William Alexander Brown, a free African American and pioneering actor and playwright. Through his…
Read More…time, many African Americans attempted to gain political and economic freedom via land ownership and building their own communities. Weeks sold off plots to other African Americans, both those born…
Read More…city’s African American community, who advocated for abolition and suffrage in and beyond the Village. One was the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives, and the…
Read More…built in 1905 and 1907, around the time many traces of Little Africa disappeared from the area. Little Africa lives on, instead, in the Abyssinian church, and other historically black…
Read More…of Africa. Weston played an important role in advancing the argument, now widely accepted, that the roots of jazz trace back to African music. Weston’s music prominently incorporated African elements…
Read More…a time of enormous hope for many African Americans in New York City. On that day, Reverend William Hamilton announced at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, “[n]o more shall…
Read More…But from the 1700’s through the 19th century, the Village was the center of African-American life in New York, with what was referred to as “Little Africa” centered around present-day…
Read More…Bennett. Bennett was one of the last residents of a Greenwich Village community known as “Little Africa,” a predominantly African-American section of the neighborhood which was, for much of New…
Read More…Lower Manhattan community from several sites for decades, by 1864 the move was made to Greenwich Village, the center of African American life and home to its “Little Africa” neighborhood,…
Read More…now lie in the crypt of the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Harlem. The current church- Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, also known as “Mother Zion”, located…
Read MoreThe Shiloh Presbyterian Church is one of many African American churches once found in Greenwich Village, when nearly all the city’s leading African American churches were located in this neighborhood….
Read More…Africa’ community located in the center of Greenwich Village in the 19th century. Bennet was actively involved in African-American civil rights efforts after leaving the military following World War II,…
Read More…school, served as the first chaplain of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief and a vice-president of the African Bible Society, and supported the establishment of Freedom’s Journal,…
Read More…using African spices injected with an Asian flair. Because Africa is a vast place and African food so diverse (and all the more if you include the diaspora), the menu…
Read More…farms in Manhattan in the Stokes’ book as well as the information in Moore’s book, we were able to map out the location of each African landholder. African landholdings in…
Read More…blues music in the United States, with Charlie “Bird” Parker and Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter among the many other greats who called the neighborhood home. Throughout his career, Weston incorporated African…
Read More…African-American, and resulted in approximately one-fifth of the city’s African-American population leaving (mostly for Brooklyn) To view them all, and to see other sites connected to LGBT Civil rights history,…
Read More…the 19th century as Little Africa due to its sizeable African American population. Proposed in Congress on February 26, 1869, the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment was nearly a year-long…
Read More…W.E.B. Du Bois, began teaching the very first African-American history and culture class ever taught at a university, at Greenwich Village’s New School for Social Research. This history-making event appears…
Read More…famed blues rendition of the same poem. Pearl Primus would go on to become a titan in the field of modern African American dance and introduce African dance to American…
Read More…19th century, the Village was the center of African-American life in New York, with what was referred to as “Little Africa” centered around present-day Minetta, Thompson, Cornelia and Gay Streets…
Read More…African American figures, from some of the first black churches in New York to the home of author Richard Wright: Our South of Union Square Map contains an African American history tour with nearly…
Read More…Social Justice Map covering Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. This map is consistently being updated as new information rises to the surface, expanding our documentation of the African American, Women’s,…
Read More…in Village history when a robust African-American neighborhood, called “Little Africa,” was centered around Minetta Street and Lane and surrounding blocks. Garnet, deeply rooted in both her Brooklyn and Village communities,…
Read More…was home to Irish and German immigrants and African Americans. In five days of rioting, mobs lynched at least a dozen African American men, destroyed draft offices, burned and looted…
Read More…to New Amsterdam during the 17th century were from Western and Central Africa, with their surnames suggesting the parts of Africa from which they came, such as Angola and Congo….
Read More…worked hard to fight for himself and the African-American community, eventually becoming the first African-American to address the United States House of Representatives. He also at one time resided at…
Read More…and real estate owners. Day was also a advocate for the abolition of slavery, African American civil rights, particularly voting rights, and a prominent supporter of key African American institutions…
Read More…Book, The Freedom Book, and The Song Book. References to ‘the Book’ were described by Ervin’s close friend Randy Weston for his album, “African Cookbook,” in 1969: “the African Cookbook,…
Read More…who owned and lived at 50 West 13th from 1858 to 1884, was one of New York’s most successful and prominent African American businessmen, a leading abolitionist, and a dedicated…
Read More…struggle, but illustrates the same race-based violence African Americans faced across the centuries. In July 1863, angry white working-class New Yorkers began a protest against the new federal draft that…
Read More…the Caribbean, and Europe. As reported in Lisa E. Farrington’s book Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists, in 1970 Burke stated: “I have known African art…
Read More…War II, Slavery In New York, The Black New Yorkers: 400 Years of African American History, Standing In the Need of Prayer: African American Prayer Traditions, and more. He was…
Read More…first African American authors to protest the treatment of black Americans by white Americans, and would greatly influence an entire generation of African American writers. Iconic works such as Native…
Read MoreExploring African American history in our neighborhoods, today we look at Elizabeth Jennings Graham, a woman who, in her simple quest to get to her church on East 6th Street…
Read More…these churches and synagogues are rooted in (and perhaps owe their existence to) our neighborhoods. Mother A.M.E. Zion Church The Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church at 140-148 West 137th…
Read More…known as “Little Africa” — a predominantly African-American section of Greenwich Village centered around Minetta Street and Lane, Gay Street, and Thompson Street — still existed but was rapidly disappearing…
Read More…Louise Bryant —Noted feminist, political activist, and journalist who chronicled the Russian Revolution. Selma Hortense Burke —Groundbreaking sculptor and Harlem Renaissance figure who integrated African themes and influences into her…
Read More…feminist, political activist, and journalist who chronicled the Russian Revolution. Selma Hortense Burke —Groundbreaking sculptor and Harlem Renaissance figure who integrated African themes and influences into her art while creating…
Read MoreAfrican Landholdings in New Amsterdam According to historian Christopher Moore, the first legally emancipated community of people of African descent in North America was found in Lower Manhattan, comprising much…
Read More…Gay Street, long known for its African American residents, and “Little Africa,” which was centered around nearby Minetta Street and Minetta Lane. Like many African-Americans living in the Village at…
Read More…the opportunity to escape to Delaware, and then to New York City. Garnet, who attended the African Free School and the Phoenix High School of Colored Youth, began his career…
Read More…Studies, Caribbean Studies, and African Studies. Over the next years, Goldwater and Lowenstein would scout books from shops and other contacts throughout Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, and sell them…
Read MoreFreedman’s Bank in Little Africa as shown in the GVSHP Civil Rights and Social Justice Map. On March 3, 1865, The Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company, commonly referred to as…
Read More…first black Catholic church in the North, located in what was then the heart of New York’s African American community, Greenwich Village’s ‘Little Africa.’ This African American parish’s taking over…
Read More…throughout Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. Expanding this interactive map resource is a collective effort, and we encourage the public to share locations where civil rights and African…
Read More…Rights Party hoped to use the nominations to reunite suffragists with African-American civil rights activists. Woodhull was vilified in the press for her support of free love, and she was…
Read More…York State abolished slavery in 1827, the number of African Free Schools expanded to seven to accommodate their children. The Third African Free School was established in 1831 on MacDougal…
Read More…African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism whose themes ranged from black liberation white racism. Many within the African American community compare him to James Baldwin and…
Read More…connections to gay liberation and the African-American struggle for freedom, the history behind the name is a little murkier, and a little more complicated to unravel, than one might expect. Northward…
Read More…to America annually after 1924. This playbill from the African Grove Theatre on Bleecker and Mercer Streets is a reminder that immigrants and migrants brought a wealth of culture to…
Read More…There was a thriving community, sometimes called “Little Africa” that represented a residential and cultural haven for African and African American New Yorkers. The neighborhood also saw racial integration in…
Read More…black settlement in North America Via Wikimedia Shortly after the founding of New Amsterdam on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1624, Africans were brought over to the colony. However, unlike…
Read More…February 2023 as we celebrate Black History Month. First, Village Preservation participants were treated to a free tour of the first hour of Lawrence’s “You Are Here: African American Walking…
Read More…large apartment building at 15 Charles Street. Wright’s work largely concerns the treatment of African Americans in the United States. He was one of the first African American authors to protest…
Read More…for the Abolition of Capital Punishment. From 1914 until the mid-1920s, no. 70 Fifth Avenue housed the headquarters of the oldest and largest national African-American civil rights organization, the NAACP….
Read More…laboratory and cross-section of tenement types which served as the homes for much of NYC’s African American community in the 19th century as well as many of the city’s immigrants before…
Read More…Revival church first built in 1836 for the Third Universalist Society at 210 Bleecker Street. The area was then a predominantly African-American neighborhood known as “Little Africa“. Originally erected by…
Read More…was once home to “Little Africa,” New York’s largest African-American community), to its Italian-American immigrant history, to its artistic and bohemian history. But this designation report also broke new ground…
Read More…for producing “race records” — recordings by and for African Americans, including some of the early greats of jazz and blues, such as Louis Armstrong. Columbia record for “Ain’t Cha…
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