Commemorating Brooklyn’s Abolitionist History This Black History Month
When we reflect on the United States’ history of slavery and the fight for freedom and equality, we inevitably think of the south. But the truth is that Brooklyn has its own complex relationship to this deeply American story. From the mid-1700s until well into the 1800s, Brooklyn was home to both a huge agricultural industry driven by slave labor as well as a vibrant community of abolitionists and anti-slavery activists who fought to end this unjust system.
Much of this history takes place in what is now the 26th State Senate District, including the neighborhoods we now call Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights and Fort Greene. And though organizations like the Center for Brooklyn History, the Weeksville Heritage Center, the Abolitionist Heritage Center and the Irondale Ensemble Project have done powerful, important work to preserve these stories, many Brooklynites are still unaware of the central role our borough played in the fight for abolition.
Slavery was deeply embedded into the early economy of Brooklyn. As outlined in the fascinating history project In Pursuit of Freedom, from the late 18th century into the 19th century, Brooklyn transformed from a rural county dominated by farms into the third largest city in the United States. Both the agricultural industry and the explosive urban growth were largely fueled by enslaved African labor. In 1790, something like 30% of all Brooklyn residents were enslaved.
Traces of this cruel history are still visible in Brooklyn today, if you know where to look. Many streets and neighborhoods are named after the slaveholding families who once lived here, including Bergen Street and Remsen Street. In fact, 82 streets named after Brooklyn’s slaveholding families still exist today.
Even in those early days, Brooklyn’s was also home to a vibrant free black community particularly in the areas now known as DUMBO and Vinegar Hill. Among them were early grassroots activists like Peter and Benjamin Croger, brothers who laid the foundation for Brooklyn’s anti-slavery movement by creating a community foundation that helped Black Brooklynites build lives in the borough.
Emancipation was slow to come to New York, even as nearby states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut banned slavery. New York State finally enacted a Gradual Emancipation Act in 1799 — the second-to-last northern state to do so. After decades of work by grassroots activists, freed and enslaved Black Americans, and organizations like the New York Manumission Society, slavery formally ended in New York in 1827. But even then, the fight for freedom and equality was just beginning.
Abolitionists crossed racial and gender lines to form the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, headquartered in Manhattan, to demand political and legal equality across the US. The next year, when anti-abolition riots swept through Manhattan, several abolitionists moved across the river to Brooklyn. Amidst the increasingly vibrant anti-slavery movement here, activists like George Hogarth — an AME pastor and educator at Brooklyn’s first public African school — distributed The Liberator, a pre-eminent abolitionist newspaper published by the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.
In 1851, two friends of Garrison, Thomas and Harriet Truesdell, moved into a three-story home at 227 Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn. The couple had been founding members of anti-slavery organizations in their previous home of Rhode Island, and they continued their work here. According to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Truesdells continued to support abolitionist causes “when such activity was dangerous and illegal following the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. Due to harsh penalties both on freedom seekers and those accused of aiding them, the period after 1850… was marked by more clandestine abolitionist activity.”
Some historians believe the Truesdells’ “clandestine activity” might have involved participating in the Underground Railroad, the secret network of routes and safe houses that helped slaves escape to freedom. They likely would have worked with several nearby abolitionist churches, including Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights.
Plymouth’s first pastor was Henry Ward Beecher, a leading abolitionist and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote the famous anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The church itself was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and was known as “the Grand Central Depot.” Enslaved people hid in the basement under the church sanctuary in their search for freedom. The church also hosted events and demonstrations. In 1859, Abraham Lincoln traveled to Brooklyn and attended a service at Plymouth. Today, a plaque marks the pew where he sat.
Markers like that plaque can seem small at first, but they’re vitally important, for the same reason it was so important to fight to protect 227 Duffield Street (now also known as Abolitionist Place) from demolition. Too often, this history has been undervalued or forgotten, even as it has echoed through the decades — from the 19th-century civil rights activism of Ida B. Wells, who lived on Gold Street and co-founded the National Association of Colored Women, to the Congress of Racial Equality’s fight for education equity at PS 282 in the 60s, to the more recent activism of local Black leaders like “Mama” Joy Chatel.
We live in a moment in which we once again must fight to ensure the safety and dignity of vulnerable New Yorkers and other Americans. This work can feel challenging and overwhelming. But as we commemorate Black History Month and reflect on our difficult history, we can take inspiration from the fact that these very same Brooklyn neighborhoods we call home were also home to generations of brave, tireless activists who fought for freedom and a brighter, better future for all. They took crucial steps toward that goal, but there is so much work left to be done. It’s up to us to continue it.
