African American Heritage in New York City

When you think of places to explore African American culture, New York City is probably not at the top of your list. Strangely enough, the city is full of hidden treasures that highlight the experience of Africans in America. The New York Historical Society has vaults filled with documents from the city's early history. Did you know that the first published black poet in America was a slave named Jupiter Hammon? How about the fact that the city has played host to everything from slave revolts to draft riots? The top 4 places to experience the rich history of Africans in America extend from upper Manhattan and branches down to Brooklyn and Staten Island. When you come to New York be sure to make a trip to the Weeksville historical village in Brooklyn, then cross the river to experience Sandy Ground on Staten Island. You'll need to hop a ferry back to the island of Manhattan where the African Burial Ground rests near the southernmost tip. Finally, take the A train up to Harlem, which is home to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Weeksville in Brooklyn is a village founded in 1838 by freed slave James Week. A mere 12 years after Weeks purchased his first plot of land, Weeksville became known as the second largest independent African American community in pre-Civil War America. What made Weeksville unique was the fact that they were able to integrate into a urban setting and it offered more property ownership and job opportunities than other northern cities. Weeksville was a self-sustaining community with its own schools, an orphanage and old age home, businesses, churches, its own newspaper and other resources. Covering only 7 blocks, Weeksville became a model of success. Their school, P.S. 83 was the first to fully integrate their staff. Ironically, despite the community's early success, by the 1950s -- the height of integration, Weeksville was all but a memory. In 1968, a group of historians set their sights on finding the old village of Weeksville. Their timing couldn't have been better as the city was planning to raze the land to make way for public housing projects. A fight began to preserve the last standing structures on the old Weeksville site. In 1970 the Hunterfly houses (dated 1840 to 1883) were declared landmarks by the City of New York and later placed on the National Register or Historic Places. Today you can visit the Weeksville Heritage Center Tuesday through Friday and take a tour of this remarkable site. Visit their website for details: www.weeksvillesociety.org

Sandy Ground on Staten Island is the oldest settlement of freed slaves in North America. The area was founded by freed oystermen from Maryland and Delaware after slavery ended in New York State in 1827. Just a year later in 1828, Captain John Jackson purchased land in Richmond County, New York, which later came to be known as Sandy Ground. For the first generation of Sandy Ground's existence, the little village was primarily segregated. Whites lived on the main road while backs lived on the side roads. By the 1880s, Sandy Ground began to become an integrated community with an interracial baseball team integrated track and field events. This was due in part of the building of a new church along the main thoroughfare of town. The children of Sandy Ground also attended the same public schools at a time when integration was not yet an accepted practice in the rest of the country.

Prior to the 1880s, homes in Sandy Ground were built in Dutch revival and the I-house style found in the Chesapeake Bay area along the eastern shore of Maryland. After 1880, the most popular style of architecture was the three-bay style and Victorian styles. By the early 1900s Jim Crow practices began to destroy the oyster trade for the Sandy Ground oystermen and only 20 years later the oystering culture in Sandy Ground had collapsed. As if the economic structure of the community wasn't enough, in 1963 many of the original houses were destroyed in the Rossville Fire. Fortunately, a number of historic sites were spared including a 17th century private school; the home of William Pedro, who lived to be 106 years old; and the Bishop Forge, the last private blacksmith shop in New York. Mr. Bishop, an ornamental iron worker, considered his craft an art form and produced works from the same shop his father had opened in 1840. You can view these site and more by visiting the Sandy Ground Historical Society Tuesday through Sunday. Call for specific hours: 718-317-5796

African Burial Ground is the largest known intact colonial African cemetery in America. The cemetery, used between the late 1600s and 1796, stretches more than 5 city blocks in lower Manhattan. In colonial New York City, Africans were not permitted to bury their dead in church cemeteries whether or not they had converted to Christianity so the cemetery was once outside the wall of the colonial city. The burial ground contains more than 400 remains of what is believed to be the first group of African slaves brought to the city, but it is believed that burial ground may have originally contained between ten thousand and twenty thousand burials. The African Burial Ground was unearthed in 1991 by construction workers clearing the land to build a Federal office building. Due to public pressure, the Landmarks Commission established the six acre site a National and Historic Landmark. One third of the city block where the remains were found was designated as a memorial. To visit the African Burial Ground and learn more about the history of enslaved Africans in America, visit the African Burial Ground Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. or visit their website: www.africanburialground.gov

Harlemis a neighborhood in upper Manhattan that has come to be known as the Mecca of black culture. The area stretches across the island from river to river, and extends north to south from 96^th Street in East Harlem to 155^th Street in West Harlem. Harlem is probably New York's richest neighborhood in terms of historical value. Long before the Harlem Renaissance converged, Harlem was the site of battles that extend back to the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Harlem Heights was fought in the area now known as 125^th Street. The Morris-Jumel Mansion farther uptown was the headquarters of General George Washington in 1776 and was visited by the likes of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. And speaking of Alexander Hamilton, you can visit his home in the area of Harlem called Hamilton Heights. Over in Morningside Heights you can visit the tomb of General Ulysses Grant -- the largest mausoleum in the United States. But what everyone comes to Harlem to experience is the vast richness of African American history that reached its peak during the Harlem Renaissance period. You can visit landmarks like the speakeasies where Bessie Smith sang the blues, the house where Langston Hughes lived, the birthplace of the Lindy Hop, the apartment building where Duke Ellington lived and the world famous Apollo Theatre. What makes Harlem so unique is that there is so much history and culture contained in one pocket of New York City. The list of famous residents is miles long. Visitors come from all over the world to experience the past and present of Harlem that has been documented in countless books and films. Now in the midst of gentrification, Harlem is quickly becoming a blend of the old and the new. Landmark brownstone row houses sit feet away from new luxury condominiums.

To explore Harlem's past visit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and for Harlem's future visit the Studio Museum in Harlem. To visit Harlem and its many attractions visit http://www.nycvisit.com