Celebrating Black History Month

You Are Here – Lecture on the Geographical History of Enslaved and Free Africans in Manhattan 1613 – 1865

Join author, tour guide, and native New Yorker Lawrence Henderson for a virtual tour and discussion of the lives of enslaved and free African people in lower Manhattan from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Lawrence shines a light on African American history with the goal of bringing it vividly to life. He has researched photographs, illustrations, and detailed maps of Manhattan to develop his 3-hour walking tour and book, You Are Here – A Geographical History of Enslaved and Free Africans in Manhattan: 1613 – 1865. 

With a focus on Greenwich Village, this geographic work will aid you in better understanding the experience of the African Americans, both free and enslaved, who worked, lived, and died here. Sites in lower Manhattan to be explored include Bowling Green, where the first enslaved Africans started building the infrastructure of the city, and Wall Street, where Africans were brought and sold into enslavement, tying these locations to Greenwich Village.

Lawrence shares that, as with the Manhattan of today, his book stands on the shoulders of a long line of African Americans who preceded him — people who did not choose to come here, but once here, brought their courage, culture, and creativity.