The Long Island History Project is a twice-a-month podcast featuring interviews with researchers, authors, filmmakers, collectors and any person with a passion for the history of this riotous island. From tales of revolutionary spies to memories of one-legged stock car racers, we seek to bring you authentic voices with compelling stories to tell. We also aim to shine a light on those people and organizations working to preserve Long Island’s heritage.
Preservation Long Island’s Endangered Historic Places Program (EHPP) offers Long Islanders an opportunity to advocate for preservation priorities in their communities while learning how to use tools like landmark designation, tax incentives, and public outreach.
Our EHPP listing partners receive technical assistance and advocacy support as they work to preserve at-risk historic places threatened by a variety of adverse conditions, from outright demolition to the lack of sustainable long-term stewardship plans….
EHPP nominations are open to the public. Listings are selected by a panel of Preservation Long Island staff, experts in architecture, historic preservation, and other related fields, as well as members of our Board of Trustees.
SOURCE: Preservation Long Island<
Black New Yorker David Ruggles, who spent his young and all-too-brief life battling against police violence in the 1830s, was just one of these ordinary people whose determination led to real change…As Ruggles’ writings show, his early experiences in the open and free communities in eastern Connecticut, combined with his immersion in the lore of the Revolution, rendered him unable to accept the racism, segregation and abuse that he saw white police officers inflict on Black people in his adopted home of New York City. Though he left behind few private letters, Ruggles was a prolific contributor to newspapers, including his own paper Mirror of Liberty.
SOURCE: https://popularresistance.org
The People Not Property project is a collaborative endeavor between the UNCG University Libraries, North Carolina Division of Archives and Records, and North Carolina Registers of Deeds among others. Working as an addition to and evolution of the Digital Library on American Slavery, the project is leading towards a unique, centralized database of bills of sales indexing the names of enslaved people from across North Carolina.
When complete, People Not Property – Slave Deeds of North Carolina will include robust metadata, high resolution images, and full-text searchable transcripts. We hope to open the project to states beyond North Carolina, creating a central location for accessing and researching slave deeds from across the Southern United States.
SOURCE: https://library.uncg.edu
In 1949, nearly a year after New Orleans’ WDSU-TV went live for the first time, Lena Richard, an African American Creole chef and entrepreneur, brought her freshly prepared dishes to a family-style kitchen TV set and took to the screen to film her self-titled cooking show—the first of its kind for an African American.
“Her reputation was very fine,” says Marie Rhodes, Richard’s daughter and sous chef. “Everybody used to call her Mama Lena.”
SOURCE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com
On March 1, 1842, Justice Joseph Story wrote the first major opinion regarding the power of the federal government over slavery. Prigg v. Pennsylvania had far-reaching consequences, in the passing of new “personal liberty” laws by Northern states and the subsequent stronger federal Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. It also provided the basis for the Reconstruction Congress’s Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment.
SOURCE: https://constitutioncenter.org
Spottswood William Robinson III was a constitutional lawyer, legal scholar, and jurist who helped devise and execute the legal strategies that sped the demise of Jim Crow segregation in the 1940s and 1950s. With his legal partner, Oliver W. Hill, Robinson formed the South’s most significant grassroots legal team in combating segregated housing, education, and transportation during the era. In conjunction with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), he argued Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County(1954)before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case became one of five combined into the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) decision striking down segregated public schools. Robinson initiated Morgan v. Virginia (1946), a seminal, early victory in the fight to desegregate trains and buses, and he played a critical role in major cases undermining enforcement of restrictive covenants in residential property sales.
HERE IS WHAT HISTORIANS HAVE been able to piece together about the lives of tavern-keepers Joseph and Lucretia Thomas Brown. Lucretia Thomas was born in 1772 in Marblehead, Massachusetts, a rough-and-tumble seaport just south of Salem. She was most likely born free, but her parents had been previously enslaved by Continental Navy Captain Samuel Tucker.
When Lucretia was a young woman, she met Joseph Brown, who’d been born into slavery as the son of an African-American mother and a Wampanoag Nation father. Brown had fought in the Marblehead militia as part of the Revolutionary army, which likely led to his emancipation from slavery and his reputation, according to one local memorial, as a “respected citizen” of the seaside town. Together, the couple operated a tavern from the small saltbox-style house they purchased in 1795, perched near a frog pond on Marblehead’s Gingerbread Hill.
SOURCE: https://www.atlasobscura.com
Mason and Dixon, who were Englishmen, were hired in 1763 by the King of England to settle a land dispute between the aristocratic colonial families, Quaker William Penn II and the Charles Calvert of Maryland. The two families quarreled and fought over land for decades. Colonial landowners along the line separating the two proprietors’ land feared being asked to pay taxes to both the Penns and Calverts because both families were claiming the same land.
On June 19 every year, thousands of people across America — millions, more like it — come together to celebrate Juneteenth with parties and parades, prayer breakfasts and golf tournaments, cookouts and music.
And if you don’t know what Juneteenth is, you’re not alone. Not by a long shot.
Though the holiday is now officially recognized in 47 states in the U.S. and Washington D.C., though it’s still being batted about as a possible national holiday, though it’s been around now for more than 150 years, Juneteenth is still a mystery to many. It’s a holiday that marks … what, exactly?
The Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities program supports national or regional (multistate) training programs for scholars, humanities professionals, and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities. Through this program NEH seeks to increase the number of humanities scholars and practitioners using digital technology in their research and to broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities.
SOURCE: https://www.neh.gov
After moving to Binghamton from the City of New York in 1911, Fred C. Hazel’s civil rights work spurred his biographic inclusion in the 1915 edition of Who’s Who of the Colored Race.
His notable pre-1911 accomplishments included graduating from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (the Hampton Institute, who boasted Booker T., Washington as an alum), and owning a business, the Hampton Upholstering Company. After the 27-year-old man relocated to the Parlor City, he quickly pursued two ventures that were completed by the middle of 1912.
SOURCE: https://www.newyorkalmanack.com
African American mobility had always been political; slaveholders tried to limit the movement of enslaved people, Southern states attempted to reinstate laws that limited black travel during Reconstruction, and when that came to an end, public transportation emerged as a proving ground for Jim Crow segregation. By the 1950s, African Americans from the South had endured decades of inferior “separate but equal” conveyances that reinforced white supremacy…
But African American protesters had a powerful weapon on their side: cars. Automobiles helped fuel the Great Migration, and black people exercised their mobility whenever they could. By the 1950s, Sorin notes, about 475,000 African American families are thought to have owned at least one car, half of which they purchased new. People who were prevented from buying their own houses due to redlining and other discriminatory practices instead invested in sanctuaries with wheels.
SOURCE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com
A century ago, on February 13, 1920, teams from eight cities formally created the Negro National League. Three decades of stellar play followed, as the league affirmed black competence and grace on the field, while forging a collective identity that brought together Northern-born blacks and their Southern brethren. And though Major League Baseball was segregated from the 1890s until 1947, these teams played countless interracial games in communities across the nation.
SOURCE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com
*Editor’s Note: runaway slaves were legally considered contraband
In a December 1866 speech Bayley Wyat, a freedman, protests the closing the contraband camps in Yorktown. The camps were established during the American Civil War (1861–1865) as places of refuge for men and women who escaped from slavery to Union territory. Wyat argues that African Americans have a rightful claim to the land based on their service to the Union Army and their contribution as enslaved laborers to building the American economy.
Adams, who died on June 6, 1859, had led a remarkable life. Over her 93 years, she escaped slavery three times—once in Maryland and twice in Connecticut—before settling in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, where she lived as a free woman for the last 21 years of her life.
SOURCE: https://www.atlasobscura.com
To aid in this endeavor the Underground Railroad Consortium has created an Archives Survey to establish a list of scholarly collections, and to locate accessible repositories for materials without an archival home.
The public is encouraged to take the survey.
SOURCE: https://www.newyorkalmanack.com
Successful essays will identify, in no more than 1,250 words, a situation where diplomats worked on a peacebuilding initiative with partners from the country/region in question, nongovernmental organizations, and other parts of the U.S. government, and then go on to analyze what characteristics and approaches made the enterprise a success.
$2,500 to the writer of the winning essay, in addition to an all-expense paid trip to the nation’s capital from anywhere in the U.S. for the winner and his or her parents, and an all-expense paid educational voyage courtesy of Semester at Sea.
SOURCE: https://www.afsa.org
From 1868 to 1938, children played on the third floor of the Mansion, which was filled with toys and dolls and even featured a theater where they may have performed. This year, after undergoing expert restoration, the Museum’s doll collection along with several vintage toys will be exhibited as part of Christmas Playtime at the Mansion, an exhibition that will recreate those playful times during the Victorian era.
The first floor of the Mansion will feature Christmas trees decorated with period-appropriate ornaments, a dining table adorned with dazzling antique silver and china, several playful dolls and toy vignettes, and sumptuous Victorian gowns curated by Stacey Danielson, with generous loans from the Wilton Historical Society.
Describe and analyze an act of political courage by a US elected official who served during or after 1917.
In Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy recounted the stories of eight U.S. senators who risked their careers to do what was right for the nation. These leaders demonstrated political courage by taking a stand for the public good in spite of pressure by interest groups, their political party, or even their constituents. The Profile in Courage Essay Contest challenges students to write an original and creative essay that demonstrates an understanding of political courage as described by John F. Kennedy in Profiles in Courage.
The maximum word count is 1,000 with a minimum of 700, not including citations and bibliography. Use at least five varied sources such as government documents, letters, newspaper articles, books, and/or personal interviews.
SOURCE: https://www.jfklibrary.org
