NAACP

The Equal Suffrage League & Black American Women’s Vote

April 10, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The month’s episode of the A Minute in New York History podcast tells the story of the Equal Suffrage League, an organization founded in Brooklyn by Black American women.

The Equal Suffrage League was a pioneering late-1880s organization founded by Sarah J. Garnet and Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Steward. As a prominent Black suffrage group, it tackled both gender and race discrimination, later affiliating with the National Association of Colored Women, which also took on the evils of Jim Crow and lynching. [Read more…] about The Equal Suffrage League & Black American Women’s Vote

Remembering the 1964 Struggle to Integrate NYC Schools

February 1, 2026 by Alan J. Singer 2 Comments

On Monday, February 3, 1964, some 464,000 New York City school children, 45% of the city’s one million students, and over 3,000 teachers boycotted school in a protest against school segregation.

Four hundred “Freedom Schools” were held at churches and other community spaces where approximately 100,000 children learned about civil rights and sang songs like the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” In 1964, over one-fourth of the city’s public school students were African American and 17 percent were Puerto Rican. [Read more…] about Remembering the 1964 Struggle to Integrate NYC Schools

The Battle of Newburgh, White Citizens Councils & New York State

July 14, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Despite theoretically desegregating schools in 1938, New York State effectively continued to operate on the basis of an 1899 state ruling that upheld its segregated schools.

Then, in May 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education which required an end to racial segregation in public schools.

The decision contributed to a reordering of living patterns and an eventual realignment of the political parties across the United States. [Read more…] about The Battle of Newburgh, White Citizens Councils & New York State

The Segregated Black Gold Star Women First World War Pilgrimage

June 2, 2024 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

On May 29, 1930, the U.S. Department of War — which had invited the families of veterans killed during World War I to visit their graves in Europe — denied a petition by Black mothers and spouses to travel on the same ship as white families and instead forced them to travel on segregated boats. [Read more…] about The Segregated Black Gold Star Women First World War Pilgrimage

The Seligmans, Philip Payton & Harlem’s Black-Jewish Alliance

April 10, 2023 by James S. Kaplan 4 Comments

Around the time of the Civil War Joseph and Jesse Seligman were the most prominent Jewish businessmen on Wall Street – financiers of the Northern effort in the Civil War and close associates of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

Every summer in the 1870s they would bring their families with a retinue of servants to stay at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY among the most prominent resorts in the United States. In 1879 however, the new manager of the hotel, Judge Henry Hilton, announced a new policy — henceforth no Jewish people would be allowed to stay there. [Read more…] about The Seligmans, Philip Payton & Harlem’s Black-Jewish Alliance

Thurgood Marshall & Rockland County School Desegregation

February 23, 2023 by Clare Sheridan 1 Comment

On the February 2023 Crossroads, host Clare Sheridan revisited the 2011 interview with Dr. Travis Jackson (1934–2021) about his personal memories and his extensive research related to the desegregation of the Hillburn schools and the role that Thurgood Marshall played in this important piece of Rockland County history.

Dr. Travis Jackson was born and raised in Hillburn. He was entering the fourth grade in 1943 when Hillburn families of color and the NAACP worked together to desegregate the Hillburn schools. [Read more…] about Thurgood Marshall & Rockland County School Desegregation

Oneida County Virtual Black History Month Celebration

January 31, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP are set to celebrate Black History Month 2023 with its annual program hosted by the Oneida County History Center on Saturday, February 4th.

This event will follow the 2023 national theme, Black Resistance, which explores how the fight for justice against discrimination, bodily autonomy, and self-determination in American society. [Read more…] about Oneida County Virtual Black History Month Celebration

Franklin Williams: An Unsung Civil Rights Hero

January 2, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Larger-than-life figures such as Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King and, going back further, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington, functioned as the “celebrities” of the equal rights movement, the public face of the crusade for racial justice.

But outside the spotlight, “bridge figures” such as New Yorker Franklin H. Williams — men and woman unencumbered by the sometimes blinding “star quality” of the Kings and Marshalls while also shunning the divisive tactics of militants such as Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, and Malcolm X — made enormous but often underappreciated contributions. [Read more…] about Franklin Williams: An Unsung Civil Rights Hero

New Documentary On Rome, NY Branch of NAACP

April 29, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Rome Branch will host a showing of their new film 49 Years…and Counting. The Story of the Rome Branch, on Saturday, April 30th at the Rome Historical Society. [Read more…] about New Documentary On Rome, NY Branch of NAACP

Utica-Oneida Black History Month Celebration

February 24, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP and Oneida County History Center are set to celebrate Black History Month with a virtual program following the national theme The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity, which provides a rich tapestry of images for exploring the African American past and present, on February 27th. [Read more…] about Utica-Oneida Black History Month Celebration

Black Families: Representation, Identity, and Diversity (Virtual Talk)

February 5, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP and the Oneida County History Center are set to celebrate Black History Month with a virtual program, “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity. ” The program provides a rich tapestry of images for exploring the African American past and present.

Fred Hazel: Binghamton’s Fighter For Racial Justice

May 19, 2020 by Richard White 1 Comment

After moving to Binghamton from the City of New York in 1911, Fred C. Hazel’s civil rights work spurred his biographic inclusion in the 1915 edition of Who’s Who of the Colored Race.

His notable pre-1911 accomplishments included graduating from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (the Hampton Institute, who boasted Booker T., Washington as an alum), and owning a business, the Hampton Upholstering Company. After the 27-year-old man relocated to the Parlor City, he quickly pursued two ventures that were completed by the middle of 1912. [Read more…] about Fred Hazel: Binghamton’s Fighter For Racial Justice

Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Hazel Scott in 1940s Binghamton

January 13, 2020 by Richard White Leave a Comment

“Whether Binghamton appreciates good music and other cultural programs was a matter of dispute today.” This observation in The Binghamton Press on May 3, 1946 arose when the newspaper interviewed residents about an upcoming music festival.

If the newspaper had conducted the same interview when Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Hazel Scott presented their “cultural programs” one year earlier, there would not have been many negative responses. As the Second World War drew to a close, the city welcomed three iconic African American artists. [Read more…] about Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and Hazel Scott in 1940s Binghamton

NAACP Black History Month Celebration In Utica

January 23, 2019 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP is set to kick off Black History Month 2019 with its annual program at the History Center, set for Saturday, February 2nd, 2019 at 1 pm.

The program will feature guest speakers, music, and a variety of entertainment. This local celebration follows the 2019 national theme, Black Migrations, which emphasizes the movement of people of African descent to new destinations and subsequently to new social realities. [Read more…] about NAACP Black History Month Celebration In Utica

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and NYC’s Minority Plumbers

December 20, 2015 by Martin Kroll 9 Comments

Shifting alliances can make strange bedfellows and surprising adversaries. The push to integrate the New York City Plumbers Union as the Civil Rights Act was cobbled together 50 years ago shows how our perceptions and expectations can change with time.

Not long before the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, construction began on what is now the Hunt’s Point Food Distribution Center, the largest food distribution complex in the world. Full integration of the union workers at Hunts Point, supported by many, might have derailed or undermined this important legislation. [Read more…] about The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and NYC’s Minority Plumbers

The Birth of ‘The Nation’: A New York Story

July 6, 2015 by Richard Kreitner 1 Comment

Just across Union Square from The Nation’s headquarters on Irving Place there stands a hole-in-the-wall falafel joint that some of the magazine’s employees— including, rumor has it, the author of this blog post — are known to frequent. Habitually. Like, every day. Sometimes twice. Like salmon swimming home.

Until recently, this behavior had long puzzled scholars — defying, it seems, all we think we know about the instinct to self-preservation. But actually it makes eminent good sense: the falafel joint’s address — 26 East 17th Street — once belonged to the first headquarters of the Union League Club, and it was there, one fateful night in the early summer of 1863, just days before the Battle of Gettysburg, at a clap of divine lightning, at the end of an eternal drum-roll, for good or for ill, depending on whom you ask, the magazine now known the world over as America’s oldest weekly was summoned from the ether and was born. [Read more…] about The Birth of ‘The Nation’: A New York Story

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