State events honor Black History Month
Display at Plaza, Schuyler Mansion program online
Several Black History Month events are planned online in February.
One highlight is a display now at the Empire State Plaza on the impact of the 17th-century Dutch slave trade network in
North America, the Atlantic and Africa, “A Dishonorable Trade: Human Trafficking in the Dutch Atlantic World.”
“Substitutes, Servants and Soldiers: The Black Presence at New Windsor Cantonment,” Clermont State Historic Site, will be presented 2 p.m. Feb. 19. During the winter of 178283, among the Continental Army soldiers encamped at New Windsor were soldiers of African descent, who joined of their own free will or as substitutes for people who claimed ownership of them.
Masks are required to attend. Advance registration required at https:// www.friendsofclermont.org/events
Each Thursday in February, staffers at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany will take a historic portrait of the Schuyler family and reinterpret it through a
Black history perspective.
The mansion is the former home of Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general, U.S. senator, and a businessman who also held enslaved people on his estate.
The program is being held on Instagram and can be located using the hashtag #schuylermansion.
At the John Jay Homestead Historic Site in Westchester County, a virtual lecture at 6 p.m.
Feb. 24 examines the legacy of slavery through seven generations of the Jay family.
John Jay was a prominent figure in the American Revolution and helped negotiate the peace treaty with England at the end of the war. The event requires registration at www.johnjayhomestead.org
The State Parks Blog also has recent posts on African-American historical items, including the Dutch colonial-era African American holiday of Pinkster, 19th-century abolitionist Sojourner Truth and her life in the Hudson Valley, the 19th-century emancipation holiday of Juneteenth and the creation of an African-American community in the Adirondacks during the mid-19th century.
For more, see https:// parks.ny.gov/history/ black-history/default.aspx.