Brooklyn’s remarkable and unknown Black history revealed: ‘Slaveholding capital’
Long before it became the go-to borough for hipsters and commuters, Brooklyn was once America’s third largest city, independent and separate from Manhattan and the City of New York, explains Prithi Kanakamedala in “Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough” (NYU Press).
But it was also a place where, at the end of the American Revolution, one in three black inhabitants were enslaved, a statistic that, inevitably, drove a wave of activism in the years to come.
“Brooklyn was a slaveholding capital,” writes Kanakamedala. “And it was within this context that a free Black community at the town’s most northwestern tip would begin to contour the landscape and imbue the land with the radical possibilities of freedom.”
Gavin Newsham September 29, 2024
Read the full article here New York Post
Author Profile
Latest entries
Political Corruption05/09/2025Trump administration asks Supreme Court to let DOGE access Social Security systems
Economic Development05/09/2025India-Pakistan Conflict Intensifies Into Most Expansive in Decades
Gun Control05/08/2025Ex-police officers acquitted of murder charges in Tyre Nichols beating death
Human Rights05/08/2025A woman who called a Black child a slur has raised a backlash but also thousands of dollars
