The Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley

Held in-person at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, NY and virtually via Zoom

The Hudson River Maritime Museum, The Library at the A.J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center, TMI Project's Black Stories Matter, the Underground Railroad Education Center, and Harambee/the Pine Street African Burial Ground are proud hosts of the 2021 Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley. The focus of this conference is the history of Black and African-American residents in the Hudson Valley, including communities and work along the canals and tributaries of the Hudson River. The Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley is open researchers of all levels, with special sessions for short presentations of research-in-progress for students and historians alike.

First offered in 2018, the success of the Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley has led the original conference hosts to expand participation and the conference itself to a full-day conference.

Conference Schedule

The Hudson River Maritime Museum, the Library at the A.J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center, TMI Project’s Black Stories Matter, the Underground Railroad Education Center, and Harambee/the Pine Street African Burial Ground Project are seeking proposals for the Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley, Saturday, October 2, 2021. The in-person conference will be held at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge, NY and also broadcast virtually via Zoom.

8:30 AM – Registration opens
9:00 AM – Keynote Address – Dr. Myra Young Armstead, Vice President for Academic Inclusive Excellence; Lyford Paterson Edwards and Helen Gray Edwards Professor of Historical Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
9:45 AM – 10 minute break
9:55 AM – Panel 1 – Building Community

• “’God has seen and answered prayer,’ The Church in ‘The Hills,’ the largest, African American Community in 19th Century, Westchester County, New York” - Dr. Edythe Ann Quinn, Emerita Professor of History, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY

• “Calvin Snyder, the First Eagle’s Nester,” - Dr. Lorna Smedman, local historian

• “Tri-Racial Communities in the Hudson River Valley” - Dr. Renate Bartl, University of Munich, Germany (virtual)

11:20 AM – 10 minute break
11:30 AM – Panel 2 – Black History in Museums

• “Free Black Men and Voting in 19th-Century New Paltz” - Josephine Bloodgood, Director of Curatorial and Preservation Affairs, Historic Huguenot Street, New Paltz, NY

• “The Black Experience on the D&H Canal” – Bill Merchant, Historian and Curator, D&H Canal Historical Society

• “Changing the Gomez Mill House Story to include Black Lives: Joseph Butt, Child Actor,” - Alicia S. Tether, Research Volunteer and Richard E. Rosencrans, Jr., Site Director of Gomez Mill House in Marlboro, NY

12:35 PM – 10 minute break
12:45 PM – Lunch, Keynote Address - "The Granularity in Naming" – Lavada Nahon, Interpreter of African American History, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation

• Bring your own brown bag lunch

1:30 PM – 10 minute break
1:40 PM – Roundtable Discussion – “Teaching Research Skills with Hudson Valley Case Studies in Black History”

• Sarah Johnson, PhD, public history consultant and Grace Zimmermann, Vice President, Somers Historical Society, Somers, NY, with guests.

2:40 PM – 10 minute break
2:50 PM – Panel 3 – Slavery & Jim Crow in the Hudson Valley

• “The Meaning of Family: Slavery and Domestic Life in the Colonial Hudson Valley” - BJ Lillis, PhD Candidate in History, Princeton University

• “Harriet Myers: Activist on the Underground Railroad” – Paul Stewart, Underground Railroad Education Center, Albany, NY

• “Spaces of Danger: Navigating Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley” - Peter Bunten, chairman of the Mid-Hudson Antislavery History Project and Vice President of the Underground Railroad Consortium of New York State

• “Elizabeth Jennings: America’s First Freedom Rider” - Jerry Mikorenda, author of America's First Freedom Rider: Elizabeth Jennings, Chester A. Arthur, and the Early Fight for Civil Rights (2019)

4:25 PM – 10 minute break
4:35 PM – Panel 4 – Being Black in the 20th Century

• “The Visual Arts” - Stephen Blauweiss, filmmaker and historian

• “The Green Book Project” - Christina Sinclair Jones, Summer 2021 Archival Intern with The Library at the A.J. Williams-Myers African Roots Center

5:30 PM – 10 minute break
5:40 PM – Conference Closing Address

REGISTER HERE

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Hudson Valley Black History Collaborative Research Guide

The Hudson Valley Black History Collaborative Research Project was started by the History Alliance of Kingston as an effort to compile existing Black History of the Hudson Valley resources and collect new ones for researchers and the general public alike. This effort builds on work done by and with the region’s Black community for a long time, including Dr. A.J. Williams-Myers’s research, the creation of the African Roots Center, the Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley, and many more community projects.

Hudson Valley Black History Resource Guide
A Work in-progress!