From left: Carloyn E. Storum Loguen about 1860; Mary Ann Brigham Brown’s husband Rev. Abel Brown under assault in Westfield NY about 1835.
Chautauqua County women Carolyn Loguen (1817-1867) and Mary Ann Brown (1814-1842) were active in New York state’s anti-slavery movement and in the Underground Railroad. Working mostly in the shadows of their widely known husbands, the women themselves were locally famous for their own efforts in the cause of freedom.
Carolyn E. Storum Loguen of Busti married the formerly enslaved minister Jermain Wesley Loguen (1813-1872). The couple then operated an Underground Railroad station in Syracuse. They had six children, and their daughter, Amelia, married the eldest son of the nationally known abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who also was formerly enslaved.
In 1851, the Rev. Loguen assisted in the rescue of William Henry, a formerly enslaved cooper working in Syracuse. Henry had been arrested under America’s Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, but he was rescued by abolitionists and then sheltered in Canada. Also in 1851, Harrison Williams was arrested under the same law, on Carolyn’s childhood farm in Busti, where her parents operated an Underground Railroad Station. In spite of several attempts to rescue him, Harrison Williams was returned to slavery. The historical marker paying tribute to Harrison Williams and the Storums stands today on Sanbury Road near Northrup Road in Busti. Another historical marker, to both Caroline Loguen and her husband, stands today at NYS Route 92 and Pine Street in Syracuse.
In 1854, Carolyn’s parents coordinated the widely attended Anti-Slavery Convention in Sugar Grove Pa., near Busti. Both Rev. Loguen and Frederick Douglass were featured speakers at that major event. However, Mary Ann Brigham Brown and her husband had been deceased long before the significant convention in Sugar Grove. Mary Ann was from nearby Fredonia, and she married another famous abolitionist, Rev. Abel Brown, Jr. (1810-1844) of nearby Forestville.
In the early 1830s, Mary Ann had met her future husband, while both attended the Fredonia Academy, which formerly stood on the site of today’s Opera House and Village Hall. The couple then traveled throughout the northeast, active in the Underground Railroad. Scholars have speculated that when the Western New Yorker Eber M. Pettit mentioned in his 1879 anti-slavery memoir that there was a “President” of the Underground Railroad, he was referring to the martyr Rev. Brown. Rev. Brown was so outspoken in his beliefs that he was often beaten by angry dissenters. His 1844 death in Canandaigua was said to have been from injuries sustained in just such a beating.
Another assault upon Brown had occurred in Chautauqua County a few years earlier, while he was preaching in Westfield. That was the period when New York State’s Anti-Slavery Society was being organized in central New York State, an endeavor also met with violent protests. However, within a few years of Brown’s beating in Westfield, the collected voices of Chautauqua County’s other abolitionists attracted increasingly more of their neighbors into what became known as “the liberty cause,” and the Underground Railroad became more safely active here, until the 1850 law. Although that law, signed by New York’s own Millard Filmore, generally made life dangerous for those involved in the Underground Railroad, the same law actually backfired in Chautauqua County, by drawing even more people into the anti-slavery movement.
Mary Ann died two years before her husband, shortly after the birth of their second child. Her children were then raised in Fredonia by her mother Mary (Polly) Dix Brigham Taylor (1790-1857), who also opened her home to a freedom seeker in 1844. There is no historical marker to memorialize Mary Ann, her husband, her children, or her mother, but a Fredonia mansion stands today where Mary Ann’s children grew up. The former Taylor farm is located on U.S. Route 20, just west of Fredonia.
After the Civil War, Daniel Fairbanks greatly expanded and modernized the former Taylor home. For the 1881 Chautauqua County Atlas, the elegant, new house was illustrated in the name of Sayles Aldrich.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Wilda B. and J. Carter Rowland operated a gift shop behind the mansion, at the approximate location of part of the former Taylor home.
Lessons for Today from a Landmark New Jersey Desegregation Case
By Lamont Repollet
Education has the potential to be the great equalizer that truly changes the trajectory of people’s lives. The struggle to realize that potential has a long history here in New Jersey. Looking back, we know Black activists were demanding civil rights reform in education here in the Garden State more than a decade before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregated public schools across the nation in 1954. Concerted efforts by the NAACP, other advocates and mothers weary from discrimination in education led to legal battles that paved the way for changes and pivotal federal legislation. One of the precedent-setting cases that helped the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice, to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was New Jersey’s Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education(1944).
In 1943, two mothers from Trenton, Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams, attempted to enroll their children in a neighborhood middle school. The school, the women were told, wasn’t “built for Negroes.” As a result, they enrolled their children in a Blacks-only school more than two miles away while simultaneously filing lawsuits against the Board of Education of Trenton. Represented by Robert Queen of the NAACP, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled intentional segregation in public schools to be a violation of New Jersey law. Schools in New Jersey would no longer be segregated.
In the courts, the Hedgepath-Williams decision proved to be a precedent on which proponents of desegregation could build the historic case that ended legal racial segregation in schools across the nation, Brown v. Board of Education. In his legal brief for that case, attorney Thurgood Marshall cited the Hedgepeth–Williams decision. Ultimately, racial segregation was deemed unconstitutional -– even if the segregated schools were otherwise equal in quality.
The broader impact of the historic ruling was profound. It resulted in a massive shift in the national landscape of racial justice and the American judicial system as a whole. The next year, New Jersey’s state legislature passed a fair employment practices act, with a fledgling enforcement division, that prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices. The number of Black teachers rose exponentially.
Further racial barrier-breaking developments also occurred. New Jersey’s State Constitution of 1947 codified the desegregation of public schools. In 1949, a civil rights bill in the state banned discrimination in public accommodations. New Jersey became a model for New York and Pennsylvania, and ultimately the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Today, nearly eight decades since the Hedgepeth-Williams ruling laid the groundwork for even more dramatic reforms nationwide, race-based inequalities remain pervasive in our schools. How do we follow in the footsteps of our predecessors and fulfill the mandate secured by trailblazers like Gladys Hedgepeth and Berline Williams? We need to compensate teachers equitably across districts to attract and retain quality candidates of all races to the field, but specifically Black educators. We must offer professional development, research opportunities, and holistic support to new and early-stage educators so they can succeed. Without these resources, we are setting young teachers up for failure before they even begin. When our educators feel whole, their students can be at the top of their game, too.
Furthermore, we cannot underestimate the power and importance of Black students seeing people who look like them in the classroom and in leadership positions across academia. Last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Trenton’s population was nearly 50 percent Black, 37 percent Hispanic and 13 percent white, yet the hiring of teachers of color there and elsewhere is slow to catch up to the diversity of its students. Imagine how much greater our students’ academic achievement will be when more Black educators teach Black children Black history, as well as all of the other subjects they are taught in school. Or how high their standards and visions of self-actualization will soar when students of color see themselves more fully represented in the sciences and research, the arts, business, sports, civil rights and in positions of leadership in these fields and others.
It’s also high time we invest more in higher education. We must continue to demand funding and resource allocations for our schools and universities, particularly prioritizing underserved communities. From pre-K through college and into graduate school, we must find and reach the undiscovered brilliant minds, the dreamers, the entrepreneurs, the leaders who are right there in our midst waiting to be put on an educational path that lets them become their full selves. Education is a pathway to upward mobility. It is a way for students to break free from the cycle of poverty and oppression in order to achieve their dreams. When we invest in equal education for all, we are building a stronger future for all of us.
In God’s eyes, we are created equal. However, history and current events remind us that we are not all treated equally. Everyone hears a lot about self-determination and being the architect of their own future. That’s easy to say when you are born into privilege and opportunity. It is a much more difficult proposition for anyone facing racism, systemic negligence and prejudice throughout their lives. We as a community cannot ignore the disadvantages that hold so many of our people back. Instead, we must leverage our positions as educators to create programs and deliver resources that will make a difference in students’ lives. Like the activists of today and decades past, we must work relentlessly to make sure that governments and systems of education do their part. Hedgepeth and Williams v. Board of Education is a call to equity in action as much now as it was in 1944, and we must rededicate ourselves to its moral imperative.
The website freethoughtrail.org says she was born in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, in 1817, and worked as a schoolteacher. At age 18, she married John Maubry Davis, and they moved to Boston. He died of consumption in 1841. According to womenhistoryblog.com, “In 1843, Lucy married Luther Coleman (she later changed the spelling of her married name to Colman).” They moved to Rochester, and their daughter, Gertrude, was born about 1845. “Motherhood brought Colman’s attention to the issue of women’s rights,” the blog says. “She began to ask why married women and mothers had so few rights, and why women were dependent on the goodwill of their husbands for what freedoms they had.” She also befriended Rochester abolitionist Amy Post and advocated for emancipation of the slaves. By 1852 she had renounced Christianity because of churches’ complicity with slavery.
Coleman’s husband was killed in 1854 while working at the New York Central Railroad, which she blamed on the company’s unwillingness to spend money on repairs. She was hired afterward as a teacher in a segregated “colored school,” where Colman met Susan B. Anthony. According to the blog, at the state teachers convention, she spoke out against corporal punishment in schools, and she and Anthony decried the unequal salaries of male and female teachers. Disgusted with segregation, Colman “lobbied parents to withdraw their children, causing the school to close and losing her job in the process. By 1856, Rochester was providing education for both white and black children.”
Between 1856 and 1860, she became an abolitionist lecturer in Ohio, Iowa and Michigan and occasionally wrote for the antislavery newspaper The Liberator. She participated in an 1858 protest against capital punishment led by Anthony and Frederick Douglass and in an 1859 petition drive for New York women’s right to vote. In May 1863, Colman was one of the secretaries at the Women’s National Loyal League, which conducted the largest petition drive in U.S. history at that point, with 400,000 signatures, to promote a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. In 1864 and 1865, Colman worked at a Black orphan asylum in Washington, D.C., and taught and served as a superintendent in schools in Washington and Arlington, Virginia, to help former slaves. Colman arranged a meeting between Sojourner Truth and President Abraham Lincoln on Oct. 29, 1864, and accompanied Truth.
About 1870, Colman joined her sister in Syracuse. “During this time, Colman wholeheartedly embraced freethought, a philosophical viewpoint that opinions or beliefs should be based on science, logic and reason, and should not be derived from religion, authority, government or dogma,” the blog says. She spoke often at conventions and wrote columns for a freethought journal as well as writing her memoir.
The Price of Silence – The Forgotten Story of New Jersey’s Enslaved People
“New Jersey is known as the Garden State,” says author Beverly Mills in the two-part documentary The Price of Silence. “We’re known for our blueberries. We’re known for our corn. We’re known for our peaches. But we’re not known for the slaves that were here tilling the soil. We’re not known for the whole history of slavery connected to New Jersey and how slavery was the underpinning of much of the wealth of New Jersey.” Enslavement was prolific from the very founding of New Jersey in the 1600s as a colony and eventual manufacturing hub that supplied the Southern states with leather goods and other products. Its eye on production and profit created a demand for the cost-effective services of the enslaved, a demand that only grew as New Jersey developed into a major maritime port. What’s more, white slave owners at the time could receive the equivalent of land rebates based upon the number of enslaved working their land. “New Jersey was the last Northern state to even attempt to abolish slavery,” says Linda Caldwell Epps, Ph.D. and CEO of 1804 Consultants, in the film. Mills reports New Jersey “was probably the Northern state with the strongest sympathies towards the South. Because it was the Southern-most Northern state, it had a lucrative trade policy with the Southern states.” She remembers “I never learned about this in school. … If anything, we were taught to feel shame. And today…I feel nothing but pride and I feel empowered.”
Part one of the documentary, “The Forgotten Story of New Jersey’s Enslaved People,” begins the series with the stunning fact that by the time New Jersey started the slow process of abolishing slavery in 1804, the state had 12,000 men, women, and children in bondage. The film reveals that New Jersey depended profoundly on enslaved people to drive agricultural and economic growth, was sympathetic to the South, and was the last of the Northeastern states to eliminate this heinous practice. https://www.pbs.org/video/price-of-silence-izsgr1/
Part two, “The Lasting Impact of Slavery in New Jersey,” continues with New Jersey’s history of bondage and expounds on the fact that the African American community is still feeling the effects of slavery today due to disparities with the White community in median income, criminal justice, and healthcare.
Part three, “The Search for Freedom in New Jersey,” examines the Black community’s Great Migration from the Jim Crow South to Newark, New Jersey, during the early years of the 20th century and tells the story through the eyes of descendants of individuals who made the Great Migration North and found life here to be a far cry from what they had hoped for.
By telling these fascinating stories through the eyes of descendants of slavery and individuals who have lived through the heartbreaking events depicted in the films, the audience will most certainly be captivated and inspired to learn more.
The Hidden History of Slavery in New York
The Hidden History of Slavery in New York is an Emmy award-winning 30-minute documentary produced by Larry Epstein and narrated by Richard French, a student at Rye Country Day School. The film features EJI founder Bryan Stevenson. Larry Epstein, an Emmy award-winning journalist and documentary writer/producer, is available to speak at schools and colleges. He can be contacted at larryep13@gmail.com. The Hidden History of Slavery in New York is available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUzlcZXBHAM
Harlem Urban Civil Rights Museum
The museum is set to open in Fall 2026 in an approximately 20,000-square-foot space within the Urban Justice League’s new 400,000-square-foot Manhattan headquarters at 117 West 125th St., across the street from the Studio Museum. The Urban Civil Rights Museum in Harlem presents the history of the Northern civil rights movement. It is a cultural institution that educates, inspires, and activates visitors through powerful storytelling, cultural engagement, and collective action. Rooted in history and in Harlem, it stands as a local anchor and a global destination for learning, reflection, and empowerment.
Morven house in Princeton, NJ was home to Richard Stockon one the New Jersey’s signers of the Declaration of Independence and five early governors of New Jersey. Morven house’s current exhibit as part of the national celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is Five Independent Souls highlighting the lives of the five men from New Jersey who voted for independence including Richard Stockon. As wealthy lawyers, the first two generations of Stocktons at Morven enslaved men, women, and children on site. At the expense of the enslaved, the Stocktons lived a comfortable lifestyle and increased their wealth with forced labor. Like other signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton held people in bondage while signing a document that declared “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The rhetoric of revolutionary America—freedom, equality, and liberty—was inescapably intertwined with the practice of slavery. In 1804, the State of New Jersey passed an act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, making it the last northern state to do so. Records indicate that by the time the third generation of Stocktons took ownership of Morven in 1840, enslaved people no longer lived on the property. At first, they were replaced by free African Americans, and then eventually by immigrants from Ireland and Germany. Morven house’s permanent exhibition is “Historic Morven: A Window into America’s Past.”
NY State Parks Launches ‘Enslavement to Freedom 1627-1827-2027’ Initiative
In 2027, New York State will recognize the 200th anniversary of the end of legalized slavery in the state (1827) and the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans enslaved in the former New Netherland colony (1627). The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation is working with partners across the state to share new research and resources that explore early Black American history in New York as part of its “Enslavement to Freedom: 1627-1827-2027” initiative. Collaborations include exhibition displays with the Office of General Services, educational resources with ConsidertheSourceNY.org, events and programs, and traveling exhibitions available for non-profit and educational organizations throughout the state. During this multi-year interpretive initiative, State Parks and relevant state historic sites are planning will develop exhibits, public programs, and other educational resources. These are expected to explore New York’s history with the institution of slavery and a pivotal period of transition for the Black community in early New York. It provides better context and understanding for later historic movements, like abolition and the Underground Railroad. State Parks is also inviting educational and nonprofit organizations to host one or more of the four available traveling banner exhibitions:
1) Poisonous Seeds: The Dutch and the Institution of Slavery in New York
2) Redefining the Family: One Descendant’s Journey into History
3) Another Face of War: Enslaved and Free Blacks in the Revolution and
4) Many and Varied Hands: The Work and Labor of the Enslaved.
Compact enough to be displayed in various environments, the traveling exhibitions tell stories from the past that center Black experience. “Enslavement to Freedom: 1627-1827-2027” resources and activities are expected to continue to be developed and shared with the public over the next several years. For up-to-date information about this and other Black history initiatives at State Parks, including how to request the “Enslavement to Freedom” traveling banner exhibitions, visit this website.
Manhattan’s Merchant’s House was an UGRR Safehouse
The Merchant House (https://merchantshouse.org/) at 29 East Fourth Street in New York City is a 19th century brick and marble landmark rowhouse that is now a museum. It was built in 1832 by hatter and merchant Joseph Brewster and sold to the Tredwell family three years later. An Underground Railroad safe space was recently discovered underneath the drawers of a second floor built-in dresser. A cut in the floorboards leads to an enclosed space about 2ft by 2ft with a ladder down to the ground floor. Brewster was a leading New York City abolitionist. There is evidence that he signed at least two antislavery petitions and played a prominent role in three antislavery churches. When a church was being constructed on Rivington Street, he had builders include a false floor there as well.
A Protest History of the United States(Beacon Press, 2025) by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall
The book chronicles the history of protest and resistance in America, from Indigenous peoples’ resistance to colonization through modern movements like Black Lives Matter and climate activism. It highlights both known and forgotten figures and movements. Drawing on legal documents, archives, and personal accounts to show how dissent has shaped the nation, it argues that protest is a vital force for change. It is part of Beacon’s ReVisioning History series. Browne-Marshall expands the definition of protest beyond traditional marches and rallies. Acts of resistance include journalism, legal battles, boycotts, everyday defiance, and more. There are sections on abolitionist John Brown, who was executed for initiating the 1859 slave revolt at Harpers Ferry; labor organizer Mother Jones, who fought for the enforcement of the 8-hour workday; and civil rights activist Daisy Bates, who played a leading role in the 1957 Little Rock school integration crisis. Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is a writer, educator, legal advocate, and playwright. She is a professor of Constitutional Law and African Studies at John Jay College (CUNY). Her books include She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power, The Voting Rights War, and Race, Law, and American Society.
New York City Monuments of Black Americans: A History and Guide (New York: The History Press, 2025) by David Felsen (Reprinted from New York Almanack, December 10, 2025)
“New York City got its first monument of a real Black American in 1946 when the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in the Bronx dedicated a bronze bust to Booker T. Washington,” David Felsen, a history teacher at Avenues: The World School, writes in the introduction to New York City Monuments of Black Americans: A History and Guide (History Press, 2025). He believes n“Behind every first is a story of triumph over adversity and exclusion.” A 2021 study of the nation’s monuments found that 50% of the top 50 most memorialized people enslaved other people and that only 10% of the top 50 most memorialized people are Black/Indigenous. Just six percent of the Top 50 nationwide are women. It wasn’t until 2007 that the city dedicated its first monument to a Black woman, Harriet Tubman. “At this time, when the media and academics were paying so much attention to problematic Confederate monuments and the white men on them, it seemed too little attention was being paid to the representation of Black people in monuments,” writes Felsen. “As a history teacher living in New York City, I began to wonder how many monuments of Black Americans there were in the city. Who was the first Black American honored, and when did it happen? Who were the artists, activists and civic leaders behind these monuments? Why did they get made? And what could they teach us about New York history, Black history, art history and American history?” According to Felsen, the first Black American represented on a monument in New York City is “a nameless, shoeless former slave help[ing] a Union widow to find her husband’s grave in the South” at the base of the 1876 Civil War Soldiers’ Monument in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Felsen’s new guide identifies and tells the stories of thirty statues and monuments of Black Americans in the city. It includes maps, and photos and a detailed history of each. This book provides a refreshing take on a subject that has been on the minds of many Americans.
Black Legacy: A History of New York’s African Americans(Seven Stories Press, New Edition, 2026)
by William Loren Katz
Discover the complete Black history of New York — from 1609 to the present — by the award-winning author of Breaking the Chains and Black Indians. For readers 12 and up. Includes a new intro and last chapter with insights on modern-day movements like Black Lives Matter, plus 50+ historical maps, illustrations, and photos. Essential for NY teachers, librarians and teens. From the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam in 1609, to the Harlem Renaissance, to the impact of Black Lives Matter, here is a concise and newly updated history of Black Americans in New York for readers 12 and up. Black Legacy reasserts the essential work of teacher and historian William Loren Katz, who was committed to documenting and uplifting the stories of Black Americans’ courage and creativity, resilience and rebellion, especially for younger readers. A new introduction by award-winning journalist Herb Boyd gives context to Katz’s “full tableau of Black accomplishments and aspirations,” and a new chapter by historian Alan Singer and social studies teacher Imani Hinson brings the book up to the present day, considering the changing economic, cultural and political influences on Black New Yorkers. Black Legacy includes Black politicians and poets, abolitionists and athletes and activists, and the first Black children to attend public schools; Sojourner Truth, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and others who fought for Black freedom; Shirley Chisholm, Madame C.J. Walker, NY’s first Black mayor David Dinkins and many other businesspeople and politicians who brought dignity through their work toward equality; and the Black history of Seneca Village and Weeksville, the Savoy and Cotton clubs of the Jazz Age, Harlem Hospital where Martin Luther King Jr. nearly died, the African burial site at Trinity Church, and so much more. Written with economy and flair, Black Legacy is a fascinating read, a necessary teaching tool, and a great addition to the literature of the Black history of New York and of America. According to Haley Pessin, co-editor of Voices of a People’s History of the United States in the 21st Century: Documents of Hope and Resistance, “Dispelling the myth of Northern progressivism, Katz offers a far more compelling account of the bravery and perseverance through which Black people resisted their own subjugation and, in so doing, indelibly altered New York history. Katz reminds us that New York history is Black history, and Black history is the history of New York. This is a book that should be read by all New Yorkers.”
The Power of Quiet Courage(North Carolina Office of Archives, 2025) by Amy Nathan and Sarah Keys Evans; Illustrated by Jermaine Powell Sarah Keys Evans wasn’t a person anyone thought would spend a night in a jail cell or change the world. But trouble came Sarah’s way in 1952 at a North Carolina bus station. Dressed in her Women’s Army Corps uniform, she was arrested for not moving to the back of a bus, three years before it happened to another Black woman, Rosa Parks. Sarah Keys Evans: The Power of Quiet Courage tells how Sarah stood up for what’s right and helped end that kind of unfairness. Others have now honored her by creating a monument that calls her a “Trailblazer for Justice.” Deborah Menkart wrote, “Sarah Key Evans’ story, along with many others who protested racism on public transportation in the 19th and 20th centuries, are omitted from most history books. Thankfully, Amy Nathan and Evans have broken that silence in a beautifully written book for upper elementary students. Readers learn that standing up for justice requires years’ worth of determination, patience, and courage. Evans was brave when she righteously refused to move on the bus, but there would have been no legal victory were it not for her continued bravery to pursue the case, to face lies about her actions, and to testify at hearings. As the book also makes clear, Evans’ family and attorney Dovey Johnson Roundtree provided crucial support. Evans’s story will inspire readers and offer a roadmap of the pitfalls and possibilities when pursuing justice.”
The Sewards of New York: A Biography of a Leading American Political Family (Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press) by Thomas Slaughter
The Sewards of New Yorkshines a light on one of the most important and fascinating political families of the nineteenth century. Through recently discovered family correspondence, Thomas P. Slaughter unveils the inner lives of the Seward family, tracing their joys and sorrows as the nation grappled with rapid expansion and deepening divisions on its path to the Civil War. William Henry Seward, the family’s most prominent member, was a state senator, governor, U.S. senator, and Secretary of State. Henry, as his family knew him, was often absent from their Auburn, NY, home, serving in Albany or Washington, DC, and remained connected to the family through the long letters numbering in the thousands that they exchanged. These writings reveal Henry as a son, brother, husband, and father, as much as they show him as a politician and statesman. His wife Frances is the hub around which this family story revolves. Slaughter explores the extended Auburn family during a half century of profound change in American homes, marriage, and childrearing. With an eye for the provocative and revealing, Slaughter takes us behind the curtain of the early Victorian era’s private sphere. The Sewards of New York paints a rich portrait of an extraordinary family that played a key role in nineteenth-century New York and national politics.
Women, Immigrants, and the Working-Class Battle in Little Falls, New York: The Textile Strike of 1912-1913 (New York: Algora Publishing) by J.N. Cheney
J.N. Cheney recounts the political and cultural origins that created the conditions for the strike including factors such as immigration law and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. It carefully considers the plight of the primarily working-class immigrant women from Eastern and Southern Europe (mostly Italy, Poland and Slovakia) and their pursuit of better wages and improved working and living conditions.
The book details the horrific conditions they endured including dangerous, unsanitary factories, rampant tuberculosis, and dilapidated tenement housing, which were courageously exposed by nurse, social reformer, and suffragist M. Helen Schloss. When the workers in two Little Falls mills organized to improve their conditions with the help of the Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party of America, they were met with a brutal campaign of repression. This new research exposes the police violence, the suppression of free speech by local authorities, and the hostile media coverage that sought to demonize the strikers as dangerous agitators.
Jamie’s Decisions (TrueFiktion) by Joe Visconti
The graphic novel follows Jamie, a skilled laborer and formerly enslaved person in Virginia who found refuge in Syracuse, New York. His world is shattered when the federal government passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the U.S. Marshals capture his formerly enslaved friend, Jerry, under the law. Now, Jamie must decide whether to put his own freedom at risk to help the community save Jerry. This graphic novel focuses on the Jerry Rescue, an event that happened in Syracuse on October 1, 1851. A group of abolitionists forcibly liberated William “Jerry” Henry from U.S. custody after he was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Jamie’s Decisions explores the Jerry Rescue and the Syracuse abolitionist movement to highlight how community members – sometimes with different motives – can come together to seek justice for all.
Sag Harbor in the Revolution (Sag Harbor Museum) edited by Zachary Studenroth
Have you heard of the Battle of Sag Harbor, the heroic raid on the British fort that still lies beneath our feet in the Old Burying Ground? Or of the mass exodus to Connecticut from Sag Harbor in September 1776, when local residents escaped the British occupation? Or do you know how our village rebuilt its economy after the Revolutionary War? These and many other questions will be answered in “Sag Harbor in the Revolution,” a book that the Museum is publishing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Thirteen authors, all distinguished historians or specialists in their fields, have been brought together to contribute new research on the subject of Sag Harbor’s role in the American Revolution.
Until the Last Gun is Silent (New York: Viking, 2026) by Matthew Delmont
The book is sub-titled “A Story of Patriotism, The Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America’s Soul.” While over 300,000 African American young men and women were serving in Vietnam, African Americans stateside played an important role in the anti-war movement, despite facing severe criticism in the media, by government officials, and by prominent leaders of civil rights groups. Anti-war activists included the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Medal of Honor recipient Dwight “Skip” Johnson. Much of the book focuses on Coretta Scott King, who the author credits with convincing her husband to support the anti-war movement, and Johnson’s family and friends, who fought to have him receive full honors and his family to receive full benefits. Matthew Delmont is a Professor of History at Dartmouth College.
Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (Chicago University Press, 2024) by Seth Rockman.
Rockman uses the exchange of products between the North and South to present a fuller picture of slavery as a national institution with economic ties binding different regions of the country. Examples include cloth and shoes manufactured in Massachusetts worn by enslaved Africans on Southern cotton plantations, tools like axes, hoes, and shovels manufactured in the North for sale to Southern planters, slave-produced commodities marketed by Northern companies, and a Northern ship construction industry building vessels to transport cotton to European markets. Seth Rockman is a Professor of History at Brown University.
Stitching Freedom: A True Story of Injustice, Defiance, and Hope in Angola Prison (New York: One Signal, 2025) by Gary Tyler with Ellen Bravo
This book is the memoir of Gary Tyler, written with the assistance of Ellen Bravo, an anti-racist activist involved in campaigns for fair trials and prison reform. In 1975, seventeen-year-old Gary Tyler was sentenced to death, a sentence later commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole at the notorious Angola Prison in Louisiana. Tyler, who is African American, was convicted of the murder of a white teenager by an all-white jury. His case was picked up by Amnesty International, and he was recommended for parole three times; each time the Governor of Louisiana rejected the recommendation. He spent four decades in prison for a crime he did not commit until he was released in 2016. While in prison Tyler took up quilting to remain sane, hence the book’s title Stitching Freedom.
Capitalism: A Global History (New York: Penguin 2025) by Sven Beckert
The text of this book is 1,087 pages. The total book with references, footnotes, and index is 1,325 pages. It is too heavy to hold so you can only read from it if it is positioned on your desk. For global history teachers, it acts more as a reference encyclopedia rather than a book, but it is an incredibly valuable reference. Beckert argues that no phenomenon has shaped human history as powerfully as capitalism. He believes capitalism shapes every facet of human existence including work, leisure, politics, values, and self-definition. Rather than centering the history of capitalism in Western Europe, Beckert examines islands of capitalism emerging all over the world starting about 1,000 AD with the development of trading centers, markets, and long distance merchants. The book starts at the port of Aden on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula and ends as globalization transforms rural, previously isolated regions of Southeast Asia. Along the way we learn how capitalism reshapes the world with the conquest of the Americas, the trans-Atlantic trade in human beings and slave-produced commodities, the Industrial Revolution, and a “neo-liberal age” of unfettered borders and instantaneous electronic transfers of capital around the globe. Key to the development of capitalism is the alliance of producers and traders with states that facilitate commerce and industry. This massive work draws on archives from six continents and countless countries. Sven Beckert is a Professor of History at Harvard University.
As Social Studies educators, we often look for resources that inspire students. When we find a resource that sheds light on a previously “unknown” event, particularly one told from multiple perspectives, it is like striking gold. The documentary “Ain’t No Back to a Merry Go Round” is precisely that resource. Created by award-winning director and masterful story teller Ilana Trachtman, this meticulously-researched film weaves together primary and secondary source footage from the struggle to integrate the Glen Echo Amusement Park in 1960 in Maryland.
Most people who visit Glen Echo Park today know it as a cultural center with an emphasis on art classes, concerts, dance lessons, galleries, and a place for special events. Few know that the history of this park includes lessons from the early Civil Rights Movement that teach about youth activism, community organizing and allyship, standing up for basic dignity, unity, and perseverance. Teachers can use excerpts or the entire film in a multitude of ways:
to enhance a unit on the Civil Rights Movement,
to demonstrate the power of ordinary individuals to make a difference in their local community,
to foster empathy, and
the importance of collaboration.
“Ain’t No Back. . .” uniquely shines a light on those who have been forgotten by history.
“Most of the people who made history are invisible. They don’t exist. The real story is that all these people are important because had they not been there, no change would have been made. No change would have been made.” -Courtland Cox, student activist and Chairman of the SNCC Legacy Project
The Story
Focusing on six individuals — from Howard University students to primarily Jewish and Quaker neighbors from nearby communities — the film quickly engages viewers by delving into their experiences, motivations and struggles. Alternating between current day interviews and news footage from the time, viewers are transported directly to the daily boycott of Glen Echo which lasted for months, as well as behind the scenes showing how the protestors organized,interacted, and forged friendships. Most of the activists had never socialized with members of a different race before this pivotal moment. It also focuses on the impact on the activists in the short and long term, the sacrifices they made in their personal relationships by dedicating themselves to the cause even beyond Glen Echo in subsequent protests.
The themes presented are broad enough that they can blend easily into Social Studies, History and English classes at both the middle and high school level. I strongly recommend previewing the entire film at least once in order to gain a better understanding of the full picture and to determine how to best integrate it into your teaching. You know your students best, as well as ways to connect the many relevant lessons of the film to your curriculum. You will become engrossed in the story of the main characters, their struggle against injustice, and how the different generations of activists bonded together over a common cause.
The collaboration between key student leaders such as Dion Diamond, Hank Thomas and current Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes (Norton) with suburban neighbors such as Helene Wilson, Esther Delaplaine and Loren Weinberg provides crucial lessons in allyship and community organizing. Echoes of World War II, the Holocaust and the Nazi party are integral in motivating many of the white protestors to dedicate themselves to fight for a greater cause, and are also seen in the counter-protests by the American Neo-Nazi party. While their signs contain offensive language, it is important for students to see how the history unfolded, and the examples of negative words and images which still rear their ugly heads today. You, of course, are the best judge of what is right for your students, but there are many helpful suggestions in the teacher’s guide on how to introduce this part.
Educator’s Guide
The Teacher’s Guide is filled with ideas for lessons of varying lengths as well as opportunities for extension, including thought provoking and relevant guiding questions for discussion and reflection throughout. I had the privilege of reviewing this expert guide after it was created. A sampling of the questions include:
Why is student leadership so critical in movements for change?
What personal qualities help someone take bold but peaceful action?
What does it take to stand tall in the face of hate?
What does protest “courage” really look like?
How do movements today make sure their message is heard?
What role does the media play in shaping public understanding of protest movements? How has the role of media changed?
In addition to ways to engage with the content, there are also numerous instructional strategies such as: media literacy by comparing tactics used then and now, analyzing the use of art such as poetry, summarizing skills and creative thinking, plus a very extensive glossary identifying key people, places, and terms connected to this story and the entire Civil Rights Movement. Each module contains well-organized teacher support materials and lesson sequencing filled with essential questions, learning standards, objectives, primary source quotes and images, bios of critical activists, activities for engagement, assessment and much more.
Both the film and teacher’s guide are clearly organized into chapters that allow for easy accessibility. Some segments include:
the Student Activists
the White Neighbors
the Black Neighbors
the Impact
Such organization allows teachers to choose how to best implement the strategies in the guide. as well as ways to use the excerpts or entire documentary to deepen understanding of what it took for ordinary individuals to commit to this struggle. It also brings to light a pivotal event of the Civil Rights Movement that had been almost forgotten by history. The struggle for the integration of Glen Echo Amusement Park can be used in conjunction with lessons on nonviolent resistance, such as the Nashville Lunch Counter Sit-ins, or as a springboard for further research into other lesser known protests against segregation in public spaces.
The guide also contains a very helpful section on “Navigating Racial Slurs and Sensitive Topics”, a letter to parents/guardians and sample permission slip before embarking on this unit of study, and tips for establishing norms for creating a safe space when delving into such a difficult and emotional topic.
In my nearly thirty years of teaching middle school Social Studies, I have rarely found a guide as thorough and adaptable as this one. I cannot recommend this documentary, and the extremely thorough teacher’s guide, enough to both new and veteran teachers. You and your students will be impacted by this story for many years to come.
Original and deeply researched, The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York: A Cultural, Economic, and Demographic History, 1700–1827 (Cambridge University Press, 2025) provides a new interpretation of Dutch American slavery which challenges many of the traditional assumptions about slavery in New York. With an emphasis on demography and economics, Michael J. Douma shows that slavery in eighteenth-century New York was mostly rural, heavily Dutch, and generally profitable through the cultivation of wheat. Slavery in Dutch New York ultimately died a political death in the nineteenth century, while resistance from enslaved persons, and a gradual turn against slavery in society and in the courts, encouraged its destruction.
This important study is expected to reshape the historiography of slavery in the American North. It joins several recently published works in the same subject area:
Three Social Studies Lessons Using Baseball as an Introduction to History
Developed by John Staudt
How Baseball and Jackie Robinson Shaped New York’s Identity
Jackie Robinson played with the Dodgers’ minor league Montreal team.
Introduction: The Brooklyn Dodgers were not just a baseball team; they were a cultural institution that embodied Brooklyn’s identity from 1883 until their departure in 1957. Prior to 1898, Brooklyn was the fourth largest city in America. After incorporation into the greater city of New York, the Dodgers contributed to Brooklynites maintaining their separate sense of identity. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. This historic moment changed not only baseball but also had profound social implications that shaped Brooklyn’s identity. After decades of falling short, particularly against the Yankees, the Dodgers finally won the World Series in 1955. This victory was a defining moment for Brooklyn’s collective identity. In 1957, Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley moved the team to Los Angeles after failing to secure a deal to build a new stadium in Brooklyn. This departure left a profound impact on Brooklyn’s identity and development. The departure of the Dodgers coincided with other significant changes in Brooklyn and New York City. The borough’s identity had to evolve in the absence of its beloved team.
Questions
In your opinion, what does the phrase “Wait ’til next year” reveal about Brooklyn’s character and the relationship between the team and its fans?
Why was defeating the Yankees particularly significant for Brooklynites’ sense of identity?
How did Brooklyn residents react to the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn?
Do professional sports teams have any obligations to their loyal fanbase?
The proposed site for a new Dodgers stadium at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues eventually became the Barclays Center in 2012. What does the building of this arena reveal about Brooklyn’s evolution in your lifetime?
Jack Roosevelt Robinson: Baseball Pioneer and Civil Rights Activist Timeline
Pre-Integration Era (1865-1946)
1865-1877: Reconstruction era provides brief period of expanded rights for Black Americans. Republican support among Black voters, however, declines when President Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South
1876: National League founded (all-white)
1884: Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes last Black player in major leagues prior to International League institutes unwritten “gentlemen’s agreement” (1887) barring Black players
1920s: Negro National League established as segregated professional baseball thrives
1939: Jackie Robinson enrolls at UCLA, becomes first athlete to letter in four sports
1944: Robinson court-martialed for refusing to move to back of segregated bus while in Army
1945: Branch Rickey signs Robinson to Montreal Royals (Dodgers’ farm team). Robinson agrees to avoid responding to provocations from racist white fans and players
1946: Robinson leads International League with .349 average and 40 stolen bases
Breaking the Color Barrier (1947-1956)
April 15, 1947: Robinson debuts with Brooklyn Dodgers
1948: President Truman issues Executive Order 9981 desegregating armed forces
1960: Robinson campaigns for Richard Nixon in presidential election
1963: Robinson participates in March on Washington with MLK
1964: Robinson co-founds Freedom National Bank in Harlem
1964: Civil Rights Act passed
1965: Voting Rights Act passed
1968: Robinson supports Hubert Humphrey after disillusionment with Republican Party
1970: Robinson creates Jackie Robinson Construction Corporation
October 15, 1972: Final appearance at World Series, calls for Black MLB managers
October 24, 1972: Robinson dies at age 53 from heart attack and diabetes complications
Legacy (1973-Present)
1973: Rachel Robinson establishes Jackie Robinson Foundation
1997: MLB universally retires Robinson’s number 42
2004: MLB establishes Jackie Robinson Day (April 15)
Timeline Critical Thinking Questions:
What economic, cultural, or social factors might have made baseball more willing to accept racial integration before other American Institutions?
Why did MLB’s integration have such a profound impact on American society?
Robinson in Historical Context
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson played first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, becoming the first Black player in Major League Baseball since 1884. The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves 5-3. This historic moment ended the “gentlemen’s agreement” among team owners that had kept baseball segregated. Robinson’s journey began when Branch Rickey, the Dodgers’ general manager, signed him to the Montreal Royals (the Dodgers’ minor league affiliate) in 1945. Rickey specifically chose Robinson not only for his athletic ability and competitive fire but for his character and temperament, asking him to “turn the other cheek” in the face of racial hostility. After excelling in Montreal during the 1946 season, Robinson joined the Dodgers for the 1947 season. Robinson’s debut received dramatically different coverage in white and Black newspapers. Most mainstream white papers barely mentioned the historic significance, focusing instead on other aspects of the game. In contrast, Black newspapers across the country made Robinson’s debut front-page news, with extensive coverage and photography.
Throughout his first season, Robinson endured racist taunts, pitches thrown at his head, and opponents attempting to spike him on the basepaths. Despite this, he batted .297, led the league in stolen bases, and won the first Rookie of the Year award. His decade-long career included six National League pennants, a World Series championship in 1955, and the National League MVP award in 1949. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Robinson was politically engaged throughout his post-baseball life. He served as chairman of the NAACP Freedom Fund Drive, traveling the country to recruit members and raise funds. From 1959, he wrote syndicated newspaper columns addressing race relations, politics, and other social issues for the New York Post and later the New York Amsterdam News. Robinson developed close relationships with civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., whom he accompanied on numerous speaking tours. Robinson supported King’s work and helped raise funds for the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, he and his wife Rachel hosted jazz concerts at their Connecticut home to raise bail money for protesters arrested during civil rights Robinson’s impact on civil rights was summarized by Martin Luther King Jr., who told Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe: “You will never know how easy it was for me because of Jackie Robinson.” Robinson’s approach to civil rights combined direct advocacy with practical action. Robinson believed that speaking out against injustice was a responsibility that came with his privileged celebrity position, frequently stating he would not remain silent when witnessing wrongdoing. He challenged professional sports leagues, politicians, and fellow athletes to do better on racial issues throughout his life.
After retiring from baseball in 1956, Robinson became vice president of personnel at Chock Full O’Nuts, becoming the first African American to hold such a position at a major American corporation. He used this platform to advocate for civil rights, writing letters to politicians on company letterhead and challenging discriminatory practices. Robinson believed strongly in economic independence for Black Americans. He co-founded the Freedom National Bank in Harlem in 1964 to provide financial services to the Black community, and in 1970 he created the Jackie Robinson Construction Corporation to build affordable housing. He consistently advocated for Black capitalism and criticized businesses that failed to employ African Americans.
In presidential politics, Robinson initially supported Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Democratic primaries before backing Republican Richard Nixon in the general election, believing Nixon had a stronger civil rights record than John Kennedy. Later, he campaigned for progressive Republican candidate Nelson Rockefeller and opposed Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Republican nomination, which he felt represented a rightward shift that would attract more white voters by alienating Black voters. By 1968, disillusioned with Nixon, he supported Humphrey again.
At his final public appearance at the 1972 World Series, just nine days before his death, Robinson used the opportunity to call for more Black managers and coaches in baseball. After his death from a heart attack on October 24, 1972, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson delivered his eulogy, calling him “the Black Knight in a chess game… checking the King’s bigotry and the Queen’s indifference.” In 1973, Rachel Robinson established the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which provides scholarships and support services to minority students. By 2021, the foundation had graduated over 1,500 students, maintained a nearly 100% graduation rate, and provided more than $70 million in assistance. The Jackie Robinson Museum in New York City was created to further preserve his legacy. Robinson’s own quote, engraved on his tombstone, captures his philosophy: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” Through both his baseball career and his activism, Jackie Robinson’s life embodied this principle, changing American sports and society forever.
Robinson and Black Voters
As “the Party of Lincoln,” Republicans had delivered emancipation, the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th), and various civil rights acts from 1866 to 1875. However, this alignment between Republicans & Black Americans began to fracture after Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes ended Reconstruction by withdrawing federal troops from the South in 1877. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal attracted Black voters to the Democratic Party.
In 1960, Robinson supported Richard Nixon over John Kennedy. This choice reflected Robinson’s approval of the Eisenhower administration’s deployment of federal troops to protect Black students in Little Rock and passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. At that time, Nixon’s civil rights record appeared stronger than Kennedy’s or Johnson’s.
As an executive at Chock Full O’Nuts, Robinson championed Black economic self-sufficiency, believing that Black-owned businesses and financial institutions were crucial for community advancement. This economic philosophy aligned with traditional Republican values. Robinson’s party loyalty evolved as the political landscape shifted. He supported Democrat Lyndon Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 after Goldwater opposed that year’s Civil Rights Act. By 1968, Robinson had broken with Nixon and voted for Democrat Hubert Humphrey. By 1972, the year of Robinson’s death, Democrat George McGovern won 87% of the Black vote —a percentage that has remained consistent in subsequent elections, demonstrating the complete reversal of Black voters’ historical party alignment.
Robinson’s Vision of Black Capitalism
After retiring from baseball in 1956, he moved into the business world and increasingly focused on economic advancement for Black Americans as a pathway to greater equality. Robinson became the first Black vice president of a major American corporation when he joined Chock Full O’Nuts in 1957. He used this platform to advocate for racial equality and demonstrate that Black Americans could excel in corporate leadership. In 1964, Robinson co-founded Freedom National Bank in Harlem. He believed Black-owned banks were essential to provide capital to communities that had been traditionally excluded from mainstream financial services. As Rachel Robinson noted, the bank was “probably one of his major post-baseball achievements” because it allowed people to “get mortgages” and “small businesses could begin to get loans.” In 1970, Robinson established the Jackie Robinson Construction Company to build affordable housing for low-income families. He saw housing as a critical component of economic stability and community development. Robinson combined his economic initiatives with direct political activism. He corresponded regularly with political leaders, participated in civil rights marches with Martin Luther King Jr., and used his business platforms to advocate for broader social change. Robinson believed in simultaneously pursuing political equality and economic advancement. He saw economic power as a necessary companion to political rights.
In his approach Robinson built on several core beliefs and principles established 60 years earlier by Black economic equality activists such as Booker T. Washington. Both men emphasized the importance of Black economic independence and viewed entrepreneurship as essential for advancement. Both created or supported Black-owned institutions that could serve community needs without relying on white approval or support. Both valued practical education that could translate directly into economic opportunities. Both saw Black-owned businesses as vehicles for community development and racial advancement. Both believed that demonstrating Black capability and success would help undermine racist stereotypes and arguments.
Despite these similarities, there were crucial differences in their approaches. Robinson saw economic initiatives as complementary to—not a replacement for—the fight for immediate civil and political rights. Robinson actively challenged segregation and participated in direct civil rights activism alongside his economic initiatives. Robinson directly challenged racial inequities, even when it alienated white supporters. As Robinson stated, he was “very much concerned over the lack of understanding in White America of the desires and ambitions of most Black Americans.” Robinson pursued integration across both social and economic spheres. As Robinson experienced the limitations of Black political advancement, he intensified his focus on economic institutions. Robinson’s economic vision expanded from individual advancement to community-wide initiatives that could create systemic change.
Robinson’s approach to Black capitalism influenced later civil rights leaders who recognized the importance of economic power alongside political rights. His founding of Freedom National Bank was a pioneering step in the community development banking movement. The bank served as the financial backbone of Harlem into the 1990s. In many of his actions and words, Robinson further developed the idea that economic empowerment without political rights is insufficient, but that political rights without economic power remains incomplete.
Historical Context Questions
How was Major League Baseball’s “Gentlemen’s Agreement” supported by social, legal and economic factors?
Explain how Robinson’s post-baseball activities reflected his commitment to economic justice for Black Americans.
Robinson said, “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” Identify three specific ways Robinson impacted American society beyond sports.
Compare and contrast Jackie Robinson’s approach, tactics, philosophies, to other prominent civil rights figures (Paul Robeson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, etc.).
What do Robinson’s shifting endorsements of Republican and Democratic candidates reveal about the politics of civil rights?
How have recent events in sports and society continued Robinson’s legacy of athlete activism?
Examine how Robinson’s story has been memorialized, commemorated, and sometimes sanitized with the removal of controversy in American public memory.
Critical Analysis Questions
As students of history, examining primary sources allows us to understand historical figures in their own context rather than solely through the lens of later interpretations. Robinson’s words reveal the complex interplay between his baseball career, civil rights activism, and political engagement.
Robinson’s Letter to President Eisenhower (May 13, 1958): Robinson wrote this letter on Chock Full O’Nuts letterhead to express his disappointment with President Eisenhower’s advice that Black Americans should be patient in their quest for civil rights. By this time, Robinson had been retired from baseball for two years and was using his position as a corporate executive to advocate for civil rights.
“I was sitting in the audience at the Summit Meeting of Negro Leaders yesterday when you said we must have patience… On behalf of myself, and I know thousands and thousands of my fellow Americans, I respectfully remind you sir that we have been the most patient of all people.”
Questions
How does Robinson’s tone and words differ from his public persona during his playing days?
What does Robinson’s use of corporate letterhead suggest about his business position and his activism?
How might Robinson’s letter have influenced Dr. King’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” What risks did Robinson and King face in writing their letters?
“I Never Had It Made” Autobiography (1972): Published in the year of his death, Robinson’s autobiography presented a more critical and candid perspective on American racism than he had publicly expressed during much of his baseball career. This statement reflects his evolving views on patriotism and racial progress.
“I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a Black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”
Questions
How does this statement challenge simplified narratives about Robinson as a symbol of American progress? Why might Robinson have felt more comfortable expressing these views in 1972 than earlier in his baseball career?
Compare Robinson’s perspective with athlete activism today. What parallels and differences can you make?
Robinson on Economic Justice (New York Amsterdam News, 1962): Robinson wrote regular columns for the New York Amsterdam News, a prominent Black newspaper. In these columns, he advocated for economic opportunities for Black Americans and challenged discriminatory practices in business and sports.
“It is the duty and responsibility of each and every one of us to refuse to accept the faintest sign or token of prejudice. It does not matter whether it is directed against us or against others. Racial prejudice is not only a vicious disease, it is contagious.”
Questions
How did Robinson’s economic perspectives and activities promote civil rights?
How did Robinson’s status as a former athlete and business executive shape his particular form of civil rights activism?
Robinson’s Final Public Statement (October 15, 1972): This statement came nine days before Robinson’s death during a ceremony honoring the 25th anniversary of his breaking baseball’s color barrier. Despite the celebratory occasion, Robinson used the platform to highlight ongoing inequalities in Major League Baseball.
“I’d like to see a Black manager. I’d like to see the day when there’s a Black man coaching at third base.”
Questions
What does this statement reveal about Robinson’s assessment of baseball’s progress on racial equality since 1947? Why would Robinson choose this particular moment to highlight the status of Black Athletes? How does it add to the statements historical significance?
How long did it take for Robinson’s wish to be fulfilled? What does this reveal about institutional resistance to social change? What does this reveal about Robinson’s impact on Baseball and American society?
Culminating assignment: Write a paragraph essay addressing one of the following prompts:
How did the Brooklyn Dodgers both reflect and shape Brooklyn’s identity and how did their departure impact the region? Use specific examples for both.
What lessons can be learned from the Dodgers story about the relationship between sports teams or cultural institutions and a community’s identity? Provide one modern example.
Resources and Bibliography
The Jackie Robinson Foundation Archives
Papers of the NAACP (Library of Congress)
Robinson, Jackie. I Never Had It Made (autobiography)*
Robinson, Rachel. Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait*
Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment
Long, Michael G. First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson
Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: A Biography
Long, Michael. 42 Today: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy
Long, Michael G. First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson
Burns, Ken. Jackie Robinson (documentary)
Chavez Ravine: From Barrio to Dodger Stadium
This worksheet is based on an article originally published by PBS American Experience, written by Eduardo Obregón Pagán.
In the shadows of Los Angeles’ urban development lies the story of Chavez Ravine, a once-thriving Mexican-American community sacrificed for the creation of Dodger’s Stadium. This rural enclave near downtown Los Angeles maintained a tight-knit, self-sufficient character despite lacking basic city services. Residents grew their own food, raised livestock, and fostered strong community bonds through local institutions like their Catholic church, elementary school, and neighborhood businesses.
The community’s fate changed dramatically in the post-World War II era. Initially, Chavez Ravine was designated for a federally-funded public housing development. Residents were forced to sell their homes at below-market prices with promises they would receive priority housing in the new development. Many families complied, believing the government’s promises.
However, the story took a decisive turn when Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley sought a new location for his team. Los Angeles investors, eager to attract a major sports franchise, offered Chavez Ravine as the perfect stadium site. In the politically charged McCarthy era, city leadership abandoned the housing project, labeling it as too “communist,” and voters approved the stadium plan in a referendum.
Community resistance formed as remaining residents organized, created petitions, and testified at city meetings about their rights to their homes and land. Their efforts ultimately failed when, on May 9, 1959 – known as “Black Friday” – sheriff’s deputies forcibly removed the last families from their homes. Bulldozers quickly moved in, destroying all traces of the once-vibrant neighborhoods. The promised replacement housing never materialized for those who had initially complied with orders to sell their properties.
Dodger Stadium rose from these ruins, becoming a celebrated landmark for baseball fans while simultaneously standing as what many consider “a monument to the power of wealth over the impoverished.” The stadium represents the racialized nature of urban renewal policies and the unjust displacement of marginalized communities in favor of commercial interests.
This history demonstrates several significant patterns that continue to resonate in American urban development: racial and economic injustice in planning decisions, broken promises to vulnerable communities, tensions between public housing needs and commercial development, and the erasure of marginalized histories from popular narratives. From a legal perspective, O’Malley & The Dodgers operated within existing law – the land acquisition occurred through government processes, was approved by voters, and evictions were executed by law enforcement. However, ethical questions linger about a process that exploited residents with limited political power and the acceptance of land obtained through broken promises. The story of Chavez Ravine remains relevant today as cities continue to wrestle with questions of development, displacement, gentrification, and whose interests take priority in urban planning decisions.
The story of Chavez Ravine’s transformation from a Mexican-American community to the site of Dodger Stadium represents one of baseball’s most complex historical chapters, yet it remains unfamiliar to many fans and virtually erased from the popular baseball narrative. Baseball’s dominant stories traditionally focus on on-field achievements.. The mythology of Dodger Stadium emphasizes its picturesque setting, perfect sightlines, and the excitement of the Dodgers’ arrival in Los Angeles rather than examining the displacement that preceded it. When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, the media celebrated the economic benefits and civic pride the team would bring rather than investigating the local community costs.
Additionally, baseball’s gatekeepers (team and league officials, journalists, TV & marketing execs, and fans) have traditionally reflected baseball’s power structures. The voices and perspectives of displaced Mexican-American residents had little representation in the game’s official story.
More recently, as sports history has become more inclusive and critical, the Chavez Ravine story has gained increased attention through academic studies, documentaries, and community remembrance projects. However, these efforts remain peripheral to mainstream baseball coverage, which continues to celebrate ballparks without fully acknowledging any complicated origins.
For baseball to fully reckon with this history would require confronting uncomfortable questions about who benefits from and who pays the price for the growth of the sports industry across the world – a conversation that challenges the game’s preferred self-image as an innocent pastime above politics and social conflict.
Critical Thinking Questions:
How has baseball’s storytelling traditions (which emphasizes baseball’s positive impact on communities) contributed to the erasure of the Chavez Ravine displacement story?
How might the Chavez Ravine controversy further complicate Walter O’Malley’s legacy in New York’s baseball history?
What does the Dodgers departure from Brooklyn and their relocation to LA teach us about community dynamics and professional sports teams business decisions?
The Underground Railroad was a network of churches, safe houses and community centers that led thousands of people escaping slavery to freedom. Northern states like Pennsylvania played a major role in the progression of freedom, and the trail made several stops in New York, including the Southern Tier counties along the Pennsylvania border. Here are some of the local landmarks near Binghamton that played a role in the success of the Underground Railroad, including private homes and churches across the region.
The Seymore Home in Whitney Point, New York
This Whitney Point home was owned by George Seymore in the late 1850s and was a spot along the Underground Railroad network. During that time most people who lived in the area knew the Seymore home was being used to hide and assist escaped enslaved people. According to former Broome County historian Gerald Smith, the home was later converted into an antique shop called the Underground Antiques and eventually turned into a private residence.
Cyrus Gates Farmstead in Maine, New York
The Cyrus Gates Farmstead was once used as a sanctuary along the Underground Railroad. On 30 acres in Maine, Cyrus Gates’ home — referred to as “Gates’ white elephant” — was built in the 1850s by a New York City architect. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Gates was a cartographer and surveyor, as well as a vocal abolitionist. Up in the attic, the Gates home had an emergency hiding place. Tucked behind a hidden panel in the back of a cupboard, escaped slaves could crawl into a 10-by-20 foot secret room in the house’s south wing attic, crouching so as not to hit the four-foot-tall ceiling, when they needed to hide.
Park Church in Elmira, New York
Members of Park Church, originally named the First Independent Congregational Church of Elmira, were active participants in the Underground Railroad. They included John W. Jones, an escaped slave who helped over 800 travel to freedom through Elmira and Jervis Langdon, a local financier who helped Frederick Douglass escape from slavery. The church offered shelter, provided food and finances, and took legal action against slavery. They also prepared a petition to officially record their stance as an anti-slavery church and in 1871, it became Park Church. In 2006, the church was added to the National Park Service’s Network to Freedom program.
Binghamton, New York home of Dr. Stephen D. Hand
During the mid-19th century, the home of Dr. Stephen D. Hand stood at the site of the current Binghamton City Hall. After moving to Binghamton and starting a successful medical practice, he took an active role in the Underground Railroad. Hand opened his doors to those seeking freedom. His home was near two existing African American churches — the Bethel Church and the First Colored Methodist Episcopal Church — which created a trio of spots in close proximity offering help. The home was demolished in the 1960s and Binghamton City Hall took its place. The building has a plaque to recognize the significant role the Hand home placed in the Underground Railroad.
Trinity AME Zion Church of Binghamton
The church, founded in 1838, is a stop on the Downtown Binghamton Freedom Trail, recognized for its role in the Underground Railroad. The historic marker at the site shares its history as originally the AME Zion Church, a site that was a place of worship and safe spot to rest and receive help while traveling. Rev. Jermain Loguen, director of the Underground Railroad in Syracuse, was also pastor at the church in the 1860s.
My partner Felicia Hirata, friends Judy and Ruben Stern, and I were discussing the movie Killers of the Flower Moon and conversation shifted to the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. Felicia, Ruben, and I are all retired New York City high school social studies teachers and we realized we had never taught about the massacre in class, and we were unsure of whether we even knew about it when we were teachers. It had effectively been erased from history.
As a high school teacher, I did introduce my students, almost all African American and Latinx, to post-World War 1 racist attacks on African Americans with the poem “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay that was first published in the July 1919 of The Liberator coupled with photographs and newspaper headlines of the 1919 Chicago race riot showing white mobs and police attacking Blacks in the street. The McKay poem is especially powerful and resonated with students because it is a call for resistance.
I now teach social studies methods at Hofstra University in suburban Long Island, New York. After our discussion of Killers of the Flower Moon and the Tulsa Massacre, I decided to review how the post-World War 1 race riots and the Tulsa massacre were covered in the textbooks I used as a high school teacher and in more recent editions used by teachers today, books my students will likely use when they become teachers, books that continue to minimize the role that race and racism played in American history.
Ruben and I both taught United States history at Franklin K. Lane High School in the 1980s using Lewis Todd and Merle Curti’s Triumph of the American Nation as our primary textbook. Chapter 27 “New Directions in American Life Changing Ways (1900-1920)” ignores race, in fact the book’s index does not include race or racism as a category (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986). After discussing World War 1, the authors skipped directly to the “Golden Twenties” where the post-war race riots were ignored. In a later chapter, “Decades in Contrast Changing ways (1920-1939),” “Black migration to the North,” “Disappointed hopes,” and “The riots of 1919” are briefly mentioned, but not what happened in Tulsa. Students learned from the book that “Frightened whites, convinced that black Americans were trying to threaten them and gain control, responded with more violence. Police forces, ill-equipped to deal with riots, usually sided with whites” (751). Perhaps even more disturbing than the omissions, is this justification offered for the white rioters.
I also used Thomas Bailey and David Kennedy, The American Pageant, 7th Edition (1983, D.C. Heath) with a college-level dual enrollment class. A section in Chapter 39, “The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920-1932” titled “The Aftermath of War” includes a paragraph explaining that “Vicious race riots also rocked the Republic in years following the Great War . . . [I]n the immediate post-war period, blacks were brutally taught that the North was not a Promised land. A racial reign of terror descended on Chicago in the summer of 1919, leaving twenty-three blacks and fifteen whites dead. Clashes also inflamed Knoxville, Omaha, Washington, and other cities.” There was also no mention of 1921 and Tulsa massacre in this textbook. Unlike Todd and Curti, Bailey and Kennedy didn’t justify the behavior of the white rioters but by suggesting that these were somehow clashes between Blacks and whites, it takes the onus off white mobs killing African Americans and driving them out of housing and jobs.
Even Howard Zinn’s widely used A People’s History of the United States, first published in 1980 by Harper Collins and reissued most recently in 2015 by Harper Perennial, the most progressive history of the United States that I used as a reference, falls short. Zinn included the post-war strike wave but not the race riots in 1919 or the destruction of the Black community of Tulsa in 1921.
I read From Slavery to Freedom, A History of Negro Americans, 3rd edition by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. (1969, Vintage) as an undergraduate at CCNY in a class on American Nego History during the 1968-1969 school year. Unfortunately, it did not have much influence on the American history curriculum.
In the 7th edition (published in 1994 by Knopf), Franklin and Moss have a chapter “Democracy Escapes” about conditions faced by African Americans in the United States in the post-World War 1 era after approximately 380,000 African Americans served in the army and about 200,000 were stationed in the European theater (346-360; Goldenberg, 2022). Despite welcoming parades in major American cities, The Crisis reported “This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land. It lynches . . . It disenfranchises its own citizens . . . It encourages ignorance . . .It steals from us . . . It insults us . . . We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting. Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the U.S.A., or know the reason why” (347).
Between June and December 1919, Red Summer, Franklin and Moss estimate there were twenty-five anti-Black race riots in American cities (349). The most serious riot was in Chicago where there were thirty-eight fatalities, over 500 reported injuries, and 1,000 families left homeless (350-351). The book also briefly describes a “race war” in Tulsa, Oklahoma in June 1921 where nine whites and 21 blacks were killed.
On Long Island, New York, the most widely used United States history textbook is Holt McDougal’s The Americans by Gerald Danzer, Jorge Kor de Alva, Larry Krieger, Louis Wilson, and Nancy Woloch. The 2012 edition has two references to the post-World War I racial climate. A “Historical Spotlight” box in a chapter on “The First World War” explains that “Racial prejudice against African Americans in the North sometimes took violent forms. However, the 1917 East St. Louis riot seems to be excused because “White workers were furious over the hiring of African Americans as strikebreakers at a munitions plant.” The 1919 Chicago riot is also blamed on African Americans who “retaliated” when a Black teenager was stoned to death by “white bathers” after he swam into “water off a ‘white beach’” (600). A later chapter on the Harlem Renaissance mentions that “Northern cities in general had not welcomed the massive influx of African Americans. Tensions had escalated in the years prior to 1920, culminating in the summer of 1919, in approximately 25 urban race riots” (659). This section does not explain who was rioting and who was being attacked.
The 12th edition of The American Pageant (2002), widely used in Advanced Placement classes, added Lisabeth Cohen as a co-author. A section on “Workers in Wartime” included the “sudden appearance” of African Americans in “previously all-white areas sometimes sparked interracial violence,” equally blamed on Blacks and whites (711). A photograph of a victim of the 1919 Chicago race riot lying on the ground face down includes the caption “The policeman arrived too late to spare this victim from being pelted by stones from an angry mob” (711). From the picture, it is difficult to tell that the victim was African American and he is not identified as such in the caption, although the police standing above him are clearly white. Members of the mob and its victims are not identified, and the caption inaccurately suggests that white police were trying to protect the Black community. The 16th edition, published in 2015, notes in Chapter 32 “American Life in the Roaring Twenties, 1919-1929” that a “ new racial pride also blossomed in the northern black communities that burgeoned during and after the war,” but contained no mention of the race riots in 1919 or 1921 (749) and the chapter on “The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920-1932” dropped the reference to “vicious race riots” in the 1983 edition.
The fourth edition of Making America (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) by Carol Berkin, Christopher Miller, Robert Cherny, and James Gormly references the East St. Louis and Tulsa riots in the index and race riots are paired with lynchings as examples of the conditions faced by returning Black veteran after World War 1. Unlike other texts, this book clearly identifies that “white mobs” were attacking African Americans in East St. Louis, Washington DC, Chicago, Omaha, Tulsa, and Detroit (694, 706, 732). It is also one of the few textbooks to list racism in the index.
America’s History9th edition for the AP Course by James Henretta, Rebecca Edward, Eric Hunderaker and Robert Self, published by Bedford, Freeman & Worth in 2018, includes Chapter 21, “Unsettled Prosperity: From War to Depression, 1919-1932.” This chapter has a section titled “Racial Backlash.” White attacks on Black workers and communities are presented as a response to the Great Migration during World War I and competition for jobs and housing. The section references 1917 riots in East St. Louis, Illinois where white mobs “burned more than 300 black homes and murdered between 50 and 150 black men, women and children”; the Chicago race riot of 1919; the Rosewood, Florida Massacre; and the “horrific incident” in Tulsa. The Tulsa “incident” did receive significant coverage, about half of a paragraph. “Sensational, false reports of an alleged rape helped incite white mobs who resented growing black prosperity. Anger focused on the 8,000 residents of Tulsa’s prosperous Greenwood district, locally known as ‘the black Wall Street.’ The mobs – helped by National Guardsmen, who arrested African Americans who resisted – burned thirty-five blocks of Greenwood and killed several dozen people. The city’s leading paper acknowledged that ‘semi-organized bands of white men systematically applied the torch, while others shot on site men of color.’ It took a decade for black residents to rebuild Greenwood” (653-654).
The best coverage of the 1917-1921 anti-Black race riots is probably Eric Foner’s AP text Give Me Liberty (6th edition, Norton). Chapter 19 “Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I,” has a section on “Racial Violence, North and South.” It reports on the East St. Louis and Chicago attacks by white mobs on Black workers and communities, lynchings in the South targeting returning Black war veterans, a bloody attack on striking Black sharecroppers in Arkansas, and Tulsa. Foner describes Tulsa as “The worst race riot in American history . . . when more than 300 blacks were killed and over 10,000 left homeless after a white mob, including police and National Guardsmen, burned an all-black section of the city to the ground. The Tulsa riot erupted after s group of black veterans tried to prevent the lynching of a youth who had accidently tripped and fallen on a white female elevator operator, causing rumors of rape to sweep the city” (766).
Over one hundred years after the Tulsa Massacre, the United States needs to stop pretending that racism ended with the American Civil War and take steps to address the lingering impact of slavery and systemic racism on American society. An important step would be to ensure that high school students learn about events from the past that continue to shape the present.
Despite widespread and prolonged opposition in many northern cities, President Millard Fillmore affixed his signature to the new Fugitive Slave Act on September 18, 1850. It unleashed a torrent of fear amongst the ever-growing populations of free Blacks and freedom seekers that at any minute slave catchers, who now possessed the ability to forcibly enlist civilians to aid in the recapture of those purported to be enslaved.
In Syracuse, already a hotbed of agitation against the odious legislation for several months, local leaders called for a mass meeting at City Hall on October 4 to further demonstrate their collective resistance. Word of the upcoming gathering reached Rev. Jermain Loguen, who was in Troy on missionary work for the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He decided he must return to the city he called home since 1841 to lend his righteous voice to the proceedings.
Following the speech of his friend, Samuel Ringgold Ward, the Black publisher of The Impartial Citizen, Loguen addressed the massive crowd that spilled out of the hall out onto Montgomery and Market streets with the courage and eloquence that characterized his tireless fight against the inhumane institution he’d escaped almost 15 years prior. He declared that he would not be taken into slavery. “What is my life if I am to be a slave in Tennessee . . . I will not live a slave, and if force is employed to re-enslave me, I shall make preparations to meet the crisis as becomes a man.”
For Loguen, those preparations did not include uprooting his wife Caroline and their children and fleeing to Canada, despite the numerous admonitions of friends to do so. Protected as he was in some regard by geography and a strong network of allies, Loguen could make this bold stand. For many other freedom seekers elsewhere in the Union, particularly those in border states like Pennsylvania, the Fugitive Slave Act left them no choice but to continue running further north.
Less than three weeks after Loguen’s stirring call to action, the city of Syracuse found itself at the center of a human tragedy that illustrated perfectly the fear, anxiety, and cruelty engendered by the new legislation. On October 24, 1850, under the headline “Attempted Suicide of a Fugitive,” the readers of the Syracuse Standard, a paper friendly to the cause of abolition, first learned of the tragic ordeal of the Harris family. In response to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, William and Catherine Harris and their 3-year-old daughter had fled Philadelphia days earlier in the hopes of gaining safe transport to Canada via Rochester.
Initial reports stated that Harris escaped his own enslavement in South Carolina years earlier, eventually settling in Philadelphia. According to the testimony that Catherine later gave to Syracuse Police Justice Sylvester House, the two were married in 1843 and lived a quiet and peaceful life, and a few years later the couple welcomed the birth of their daughter. Terrified that he might be captured under the auspices of the new law, William made the fateful decision to uproot his family, and they made their way to New York City. There, they procured tickets to Rochester via the Erie Canal.
The real trouble began once they reached Albany on Thursday, October 17. As Mrs. Harris relayed in her testimony, having purchased their tickets for passage to Rochester they boarded their boat. The problems started almost immediately. Captain Hartwell C. Webster refused to return the Harris’s tickets. They were stuck in the cargo hold with large quantities of clams and oysters, delicacies that had become wildly popular all along the canal route in the 25 years since its completion.
The clams and oysters belonged to a merchant named Silas Cowell, who along with one of the boat hand’s, Jeremiah Cluney, began harassing the Harris family that evening. Somehow, they became aware of William’s status as a fugitive. Compounding their predicament was the fact that Mrs. Harris was of markedly lighter skin tone, being described in the New York Tribune[2] as a “mulatto woman, of interesting appearance.”
According to Harris’ testimony, Cluney and Cowell continued threatening to handing them over to slave catchers saying, “no n—– could pass this canal without being taken.” Preying on their fear, these men tormented William and Catherine and their three year-old-daughter for the next two days. They even attempted to extort money from William for passage, aware that the Captain had taken their tickets to Rochester. Mrs. Harris stated that Cluney and Cowell made reference to Syracuse as “the place where they said we would be taken.” After days of ceaseless torment, Catherine Harris could not take it anymore. As she stated in her testimony, she “wants to die rather than be taken by the kidnappers.”
Convinced that the slave catchers were waiting on them in Syracuse, she jumped through the moving boat’s window and into the canal with her daughter in her arms somewhere between Frankfort and Utica. Somehow, she was fished out of the nearly eight feet of water. In the commotion, her daughter slipped out of her grasp. The captain refused to stop the boat to look for her body. William went on deck to beg the captain to stop the boat, but to no avail. Cluney threatened to cut his throat if he did not go back below decks. Their daughter was assumed drowned.
Sometime around 10 p.m., on Monday, Catherine and William retreated to the cargo hold, the depths of their misery unimaginable “awaiting their doom.” In her testimony, Mrs. Harris said Cowell confronted them again saying that the crew was going to “take his head off.” William responded that he would rather do it himself. He took his shaving razor and sliced his own throat. For the next five hours, William lay bleeding next to his wife. All the while, Cluney and Cowell sat there playing cards, yelling racist epithets at him and threatening to “knock his brains out” if he so much as moved.
As the morning sun appeared in the skies outside Canastota on Tuesday, October 22, William was able to jump off the boat and began walking on the towpath towards Syracuse. Catherine recounted being able to see him alongside the boat, while Cluney, acting on the orders of the captain, threatened William with violence if he attempted to rejoin his aggrieved wife. As such, he walked wounded and bleeding alongside the boat for over 20 miles until he collapsed by the Lodi locks, near Beech Street. Catherine reported losing sight of him around this time as the boat continued on into Clinton Square. She remained on the boat as it continued west towards Rochester. There were no slave catchers waiting there. It had all been a grotesque and murderous charade.
According to the reports in the Syracuse Journal, William Harris regained consciousness and threw himself into the canal in front of a moving boat just west of the Lodi locks. The boat’s Captain, V.R. Ogden managed to rescue Harris and bring him into Clinton Square, where he was taken and treated by Dr. Hiram Hoyt, a Syracuse physician with abolitionist sympathies. Though Harris was unable to talk due to the wound on his neck, somehow, he communicated his ordeal to Hoyt, who in turn got word to Rev. John Lisle, a Black preacher in the AME Zion Church and pastor of the Second Congregational Church on Fayette and Almond streets. Rev. Lisle offered to head west towards Rochester to find Catherine, which he did at Montezuma. According to Lisle’s testimony, he encountered no resistance from Captain Webster nor the boat’s crew, a far cry from the harrowing experience of the Harrises.
Upon their return to Syracuse, Catherine provided the testimony upon which this essay is based. As a result of her damning testimony, Justice House issued arrest warrants for Webster, Cluney, and Cowell. The three men were detained in Rochester and brought to Syracuse on charges of assault and harassment. Unconvinced by their testimony, which painted William Harris as a disorderly drunk, they were found guilty, fined and jailed.
According to historian Angela Murphy, the Harrises continued their journey to freedom in Canada, though as a family of two instead of three. Their unimaginable suffering found its way into newspapers all over the union from Wisconsin to Maine, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Virginia, and even Georgia. It helped galvanize the opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law in a way that rhetoric could not.
Here in Syracuse, the memory of the Harrises persisted, actuating more strident resistance. This resistance would come to a head less than a year later in one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience of the period, when a righteous mob freed Jerry from his jail cell just a few steps from the Clinton Street bridge where Dr. Hoyt found William Harris bleeding from a self-inflicted wound.
Attempted Suicide of a Fugitive
“On Tuesday afternoon a colored man named Wm Harris, attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a razor, on the towing path, about two miles east of this city. Harris is from South Carolina, and has been residing in Philadelphia for several years past, but on the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law became alarmed for his safety, and started for Canada, accompanied by his wife and child. In New York he procured a passage ticket for Rochester, but at Albany his ticket was taken from him and destroyed by some persons who threatened to deliver him up unless he paid for his passage again. He succeeded in getting as far as Utica, when his fears were again excited by threats of being taken back to Slavery, and says he was informed by persons belonging to the boat that he would certainly be arrested at Syracuse. He became so much alarmed by these repeated threats, (Whether made in jest or earnest it is now impossible to say) that he determined to commit suicide, and advised his wife to drown herself and their child. Taking his razor he jumped on the towing path and made an attempt to destroy himself by cutting his throat, inflicting a terrible wound, and fainted from loss of blood. His wife, with the child in her arms jumped into the canal about the same time, but was taken out by the hands-on-board the boat. The child was not recovered. The wife was carried west through this city, on the boat, [3] leaving the husband upon the tow path.” Source: Syracuse Standard, October 24, 1850.
Rev. Loguen Denounces the Fugitive Slave Law (Syracuse, NY)
“I was a slave; I knew the dangers I was exposed to. I had made up my mind as to the course I was to take. On that score I needed no counsel, nor did the colored citizens generally. They had taken their stand-they would not be taken back to slavery. If to shoot down their assailants should forfeit their lives, such result was the least of the evil. They will have their liberties or die in their defence. What is life to me if I am to be a slave in Tennessee? My neighbors! I have lived with you many years, and you know me. My home is here, and my children were born here. I am bound to Syracuse by pecuniary interests, and social and family bonds. And do you think I can be taken away from you and from my wife and children, and be a slave in Tennessee? Has the President and his Secretary sent this enactment up here, to you,
Some kind and good friends advise me to quit my country, and stay in Canada, until this tempest is passed. I doubt not the sincerity of such counsellors. But my conviction is strong, that their advice comes from lack of knowledge of themselves and the case in hand. I believe that our own bosoms are charged to the brim with qualities that will smite to the earth the villains who may interfere to enslave any man in Syracuse.
I don’t respect this law- I don’t fear it- I won’t obey it! It outlaws me, and I outlaw it, and the men who attempt to enforce it on me. I place the governmental officials on the ground that they place me. I will not live a slave, and if force is employed to re-enslave me, I shall make preparations to meet the crisis as becomes a man.” Source: The Rev. J.W. Loguen, As A Slave and As a freeman. A Narrative of Real Life (Syracuse, 1859), pp. 391-93; Aptheker 306-308
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