Earlier than there was a “Black Wall Road,” there was Brooklyn, New York’s Weeksville. The unique for us, by us, Weeksville was a neighborhood that was constructed by free Black folks, at no cost Black folks, defying each odd the nineteenth century needed to provide. And New York Metropolis Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani helps guarantee that legacy is preserved and highlighted within the tapestry of NYC.
At present, theGrio completely debuts “A Dignified Life: The Story of Weeksville,” a brand new quick movie detailing the restoration and historical past of the Hunterfly Highway Homes on the Weeksville Heritage Middle in Brooklyn by Mayor Mamdani’s workplace.
“Weeksville reminds us that Black New Yorkers constructed this metropolis — not simply its neighborhoods, however its spirit. This piece honors the generations who fought to protect that historical past,” Mamdani advised theGrio. “And it challenges us to do our half right this moment: to construct a future the place the individuals who made this metropolis what it’s can afford to name it dwelling.”
Based in 1838, a full 11 years after the abolition of slavery in New York State, Weeksville is a blueprint of Black self-determination. Free Black women and men bought land, offered it to 1 one other, and constructed a whole neighborhood from the bottom up, full with church buildings, faculties, its personal newspaper, and even its personal baseball crew. At its peak within the 1850s, Weeksville had grown to greater than 500 residents, changing into each a beacon of Black chance and a sanctuary from the very actual risks of the period.
“The Fugitive Slave Act is put into place in 1850,” President and CEO of the Weeksville Heritage Middle Dr. Raymond Codrington defined. “It allowed personal residents to turn into deputized to spherical up those who had escaped slavery and return them. So, it wasn’t unusual for folks to be kidnapped and returned to both a spot they knew or a spot they didn’t know. That’s a terrifying actuality for a lot of Black folks which can be dwelling on the time, so the place do they arrive? The place is their sanctuary? It was Weeksville.”
The neighborhood additionally served as a secure haven throughout the 1863 Draft Riots in Manhattan, when racist violence despatched Black New Yorkers desperately trying to find security.
The brand new documentary brings that historical past to vivid life by means of archival footage, images, and interviews with historians and web site stewards, together with Tour Coordinator Regina Robbins, Collections Assistant Amanda Henderson, and curator-in-residence Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts. Past the historical past that lives throughout the homes, the Weeksville Middle’s Hunterfly Highway Homes are notably particular as they’re the one African American historic web site within the Northeast nonetheless positioned on its authentic land.
“What exists in our historic locations — however particularly in locations the place Black life has thrived and continued — are traits of lives lived and time handed,” Rhodes-Pitts says within the movie. “After we go to these homes, the sensation I all the time get is that it’s a spot we will contact that reminds us to be as formidable because the individuals who had the imaginative and prescient to construct them to start with.”
The restoration, funded by the NYC Mayor’s Workplace, the Brooklyn Borough President, and the New York Metropolis Council, included work on the homes’ façades, siding, home windows, doorways, and front-entry porches. Sensible however essential upgrades have been additionally made, together with a climate-controlled storage room for historic preservation, new plumbing, upgraded hearth alarms with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, exterior lighting, and a brand new CCTV system.
At present, the Weeksville Heritage Middle carries forth the community-driven legacy of the historic neighborhood, internet hosting all the things from yoga courses, workshops, and movie screenings to arts programming and intergenerational occasions.
“In a time when many marginalized communities transfer by means of their each day lives with uncertainty, when some concern detention, concentrating on, or separation from their households, Weeksville stands as a reminder that sanctuary is a part of our historical past. It is usually a part of our accountability,” Dr. Raymond Codrington concluded.
And as Mayor Mamdani shares within the movie, “might the reminiscence of Weeksville gentle our method” ahead.
