How Harlem Developed as an African American Community

This week on The Historians Podcast, New York City attorney and regular New York Almanack contributor Jim Kaplan explains how Harlem was economically developed in the early 1900s. Jewish financiers joined with Black realtor Phillip Payton to develop Harlem and in the process improved race relations in New York City.

Kaplan said, “The Passover Seder tells the Story of the flight of the Jews out of slavery in Egypt to freedom 4000 years ago. However, there is a less well known story about the struggle of Jews and blacks in New York City over a hundred years ago to defeat racial and religious prejudice which should also be told.”

Kaplan is a founding partner of the New York City law firm of Greenberg & Kaplan, a walking tour historian of New York neighborhoods including Harlen and a co-founder and past President of the Lowe Manhattan Historical Association. He is a former vice president and long-term board member of the Temple of Universal Judaism.

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