A History Erased: Rediscovering Black Schenectady

It’s important to keep telling our own stories writing books and keeping artifacts from family and having our own libraries and museums to tell OUR OWN STORIES available to share within our own communities with our own children

I am from a small town in New Jersey. ( Montclair, New Jersey ) When I review the history of my town,Black people are never mentioned as productive and stable. However there was a large and close knit community of Black people. At the time that I grew up the church was very prominent in our community. Every adult, worked and took responsibility for the welfare of every child in the neighborhood. We had our own social network and our parents made sure that our achievements were recorded and documented. Montclair, also had a large population of Italians, they also had a large productive and stable community, they are hardly mentioned. It is no accident that whites act like people that are different did not exist, in all of their history they exclude non-whites. To this day they are refusing to acknowledge Black history by not even allowing it to be taught in schools.

As a descendent of one of Schenectady's first slave-owning founding families, I greatly appreciate the depth and breadth of historical investigation and I encourage its continuance. #DebtOwed #ReparationsNow

I would be interested in knowing how the town was impacted by the Civil War.

what a fascinating, interesting and valuable piece of work. Great Job Mike.

Soooooo interesting very informative.. thank you very much for this program!

Very good scholarship here - you’ve left no stone unturned. Thank you for this phenomenal work!

Picture a small grpup of merchants importing millions of people, far and above the amount needed for labor, and then fooling around all day, and leaving their descendants with a pissed off and huge poor pool of slave laborers after they made their money. The whole thing is disgusting over all. Starts with importing millions of people they knew nothing about and thinking this was going to work out well for their descendants, either owner or slave.

very courageous of you. most of the people want certain things to remain hidden.

The dramatic drop in the Black community is quite daunting. I wonder if there were local laws passed that placed undue restrictions on the Black population, prompting their move. That kind of thing was quite commonplace. What else could have happened from 1850 to 1870 to cause the large decline?

Very valuable and interesting information. Thank you for sharing.

My best guess is they left because they didn't want to live around the same people who enslaved them. They may have moved to Canada.

Very interesting information. Thanks!

Excellent documentary! Mike, you have done some fine research! I was wondering if you had access to birth and death records pertaining to black citizens in this period, if in fact such records even existed. I was thinking that part of the marked decrease in population in the decade after 1830 might have been due to elderly former slaves passing away.

35:44 volunteer minstrel show 1903, 6th annual performance

31:48 jay st was backbone of community

They got shipped to the Islands dividing the tribes

The only historical evidence I can recall from Albany was Henry Johnson and they didn’t exactly bring him up for the community to learn about

28:41 building a home

Thank you. I always said there are good same.good people in the world they just have to come and together to make this a better. World and sèx😅😅😅 did I sathat 😮😮.