For Don - Slavery in the North

New York Times
November 26, 2005
The Anger and Shock of a City's Slave Past
By Felicia R. Lee
They have the awkwardness of amateur home videos: background noise, long
silences, people looking away from the camera. But inside a booth at the
New-York Historical Society, visitors to the exhibition "Slavery in New
York" are recording their reactions, creating snapshot reflections on race
and history in the nation's largest city.

"It allows our young people to understand, really, how this city was born
and who carried the brunt of the prosperity that we see in New York, not
only then but now," a black man from "Harlem, New York," said of the show,
the largest in the museum's 201-year history. The man, who appeared to be in
his 30's, said he wanted to know what businesses in the city today derived
profits in the past from selling human beings.

A white lawyer went into the booth twice to sort out his feelings. "This has
just been devastating," he said. As he looked at the exhibition's array of
documents, he said, he realized that the some of the laws used to isolate
and dehumanize enslaved black New Yorkers became custom after the laws
vanished and "contributed to the way whites look at blacks," even today.

"It's striking for any of us who are New Yorkers to realize that the ground
we touch, every institution, is affected by slavery," he said.

Two young African-American brothers crammed into the booth together.
"Slavery in New York was bad, and it's how New York became the richest city
in the world," one of them declared.

The exhibition, which illustrates the centrality of 200 years of slavery to
the growth of New York City, opened on Oct. 7 and runs through March 5. The
very idea of slaves walking the streets of what is now SoHo or of slave
auction blocks in Lower Manhattan - in a city known for tolerance and
diversity - has attracted people of varied races and ages. There are no
specific attendance figures yet, but museum officials said the exhibition
galleries had been packed and attendance was up 83 percent over the same
period last year, when the museum presented an exhibition on Alexander
Hamilton.

The $5 million slavery exhibition features more than 400 artifacts,
documents, paintings and maps spanning 9,000 square feet in 10 galleries.
Visitors can see advertisements for runaway slaves and "negroes, to be
sold"; caricatured drawings of blacks; items like chairs and cribs made by
slave hands; and a 1644 document granting slaves "half freedom" and land
around what is now Washington Square.

The visitor response booth is at the end of the exhibition. There, visitors
touch a blue-screened computer asking questions about what they have seen:
their overall impression, how it added to or altered their knowledge on the
subject, what they found noteworthy. They then look at the camera and speak
their answers.

"This is a much more qualitative way of knowing who's coming to the museum,"
said Richard Rabinowitz, the show's curator. "We really wanted to let people
talk and think through things. We wanted people to frame a meaning for this
as they leave." Museum officials plan to use those responses to figure out
what and how people learn from such exhibitions.

So far, about 400 responses have been videotaped. Some will become part of
the "visitor reaction" monitors now in three galleries, which showcase
selected people who previewed the show.

In one, for example, a middle-aged white woman says the exhibition can make
a difference. "A difference when you look at a black person on a subway
train," she says, "or you're working next to a black person, that you have a
little more empathy and understanding and also praising for how far so many
people came."

In the raw videotape, the names given are not clear, one has to guess at
ages and there is no consensus on what people found most noteworthy about
the show. Some said they were shocked to learn that some slaves fought with
the British during the Revolutionary War (in a bid for freedom); others said
they had discovered that George Washington owned slaves; and some mused that
New York City slavery was no more benign than the Southern variety.

After all, slaves in New York worked sunup to sundown. Slaves helped build
the wall on Wall Street (and were sold there) and built the first City Hall
and Trinity Church. Slavery was the lifeline for hundreds of city
businesses. During British rule, about 40 percent of the city's households
owned slaves. Institutional exhibitions about America's slave-holding past
are relatively new and help foster a national conversation about race, said
James Oliver Horton, the chief historian for "Slavery." This show's size and
location facilitate that dialogue, he said.

"Back in the 90's, when Bill Clinton asked for a national conversation about
race, most people didn't have the context in which to have the
conversation," said Dr. Horton, a professor of American studies and history
at George Washington University. "This exhibition will help Americans have
such a historical context. It will help people start with a common
experience."

One commonality that emerges from viewing five hours of the visitor
videotapes is how much people do not know. Many were unaware of the
existence or extent of slavery in New York, which lasted until 1827, longer
than in any other Northern state except New Jersey.

"It's terrible to know that the city that I love was part of the slave
trade," said a middle-aged white woman from New Jersey. "I'm shocked to hear
about it."

An African-American man in the booth with his young daughter said: "It's
just a constant reminder that here in New York, like in other places in the
United States, we were nothing more than cattle in the eyes of the owners
and were treated that way. It's just amazing that people were able to
survive and thrive after that."

An elderly white woman who said she had two college degrees said, "I never
knew until I walked in here about slavery in New York." Now, she said, "It
just breaks my heart."

An African-American woman who identified herself as a graduate of Cornell
University said, "I've actually had people tell me that black people in New
York had no history."

"I can now feel that I have information I can share," she said.

A middle-aged white woman who said she lived down the street from the museum
noted that her daughter's advanced placement courses in history included
only one hour about slavery. "It made me realize how history doesn't go
away," the mother said of the exhibition. "These burdens are carried through
generations."

Clearly, schools are failing to educate students about slavery, said Louise
Mirrer, the society's president. Dr. Mirrer said she would be gratified to
see the public schools use the educational materials developed by the
society for "Slavery."

While most visitors are admirers, the exhibition comes in for some
criticism, too. Some said it was saturated with facts but failed to convey
slavery's brutality. One woman wondered why she did not see a single
shackle. Dr. Rabinowitz said it was an informed decision to let the facts
speak, without graphic depictions of beatings or family separations.

But in the reaction booth, a young black man from Harlem argued that the
show should be enraging. "Why are there ghettos in New York City? Because of
slavery," he said. He learned many facts from the show, he added, but wanted
explicit connections between race and class. "The ramifications of slavery
still affect the world," he said. "It's not something to be put in the past,
like dinosaurs or fossils."

An African-American woman from Washington complained, "The soul of it was
completely gone." She added, "It was spoken about as if it was any economic
phenomenon instead of human."

But some people caught on camera said the show had certainly made them think
harder about skin color and the echoes of the past.

A woman from Chicago, who described herself as an artist and a
second-generation Slovakian, said the exhibition helped her in that way. She
watched two African-American children playing in the museum, and it dawned
on her that in another time they would have been slaves. "They had no
choice," she said. "They had no power."

And after learning that at one time 20 percent of New Yorkers were enslaved,
the artist said, she went to the lobby of the grand Historical Society
building and began imagining the past. "I'd look around and look around,"
she said, "and one in five people would be a slave."

- Doesnb't apply here. auctioned off all my slaves last week on
Ebay...


( & WHAT does this have to do with SCUBA ??))

mcdonald606a@yahoo.com wrote:

> - Doesnb't apply here. auctioned off all my slaves last week on
> Ebay...
>
>
> ( & WHAT does this have to do with SCUBA ??))
>
nothing - I refer you to grumann