On July 28, 1917, the NAACP organized a Silent Parade down Fifth Avenue in response to a series of violent murders of African American men in Texas and Tennessee. More than 10,000 African-Americans "slowly and silently" marched in the protest. These are some of the messages that were written on signs the men carried: We march because by the Grace of God and the force of truth, the dangerous, hampering walls of prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall. We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face of such barbaric acts. We march because we want our children to live a better life and enjoy fairer conditions than have fallen to our lot.

This 1847 church once housed the oldest African American congregation in Brooklyn and has survived the mid-century urban renewal of the surrounding neighborhood. The Bridge Street A.W.M.E. Church is the oldest African American congregation in the Brooklyn and Long Island area. Its origins date to 1766 and the open air Brooklyn sermons of Methodist convert Thomas Webb, which later became the Sands Street W.M.E., and then the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Brooklyn, both mixed race congregations. In 1817, the African American members withdrew from the church to establish their own congregation, called the African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church (A.W.M.E.). They first built a church near High and Jay Streets, but moved to 309 Bridge Street, pictured here, in 1854.

The Lafayette, located right across from the wishing tree (more on that below), was one of the first major theaters to desegregate. It was home to a well-known Black acting company, the Lafayette Players. The Players were also the first enduring African-American stock theater company. The Lafayette and its adjacent nightclub, Connie's Inn, hosted the likes of Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, and Duke Ellington.

The architect behind Harlem's Mother A.M.E. Zion Church, George W. Foster Jr.,was one of the first black architects registered in the United States and one of only 59 black architects recorded in the 1910 United States Census. Throughout the many struggles and strains that shaped Harlem from 1920-60, the church was a strong supporter of and leader in civil rights activism, drawing renowned Harlem residents like Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, and Marion Anderson, among others.

The Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company located at this location in 1866. The bank was created by the United States Congress to aid freedmen in their transition from slavery to freedom. The Freedmen’s Bank was created by John W. Alvord, a Congregational Minister, and A.M. Sperry, an abolitionist, to eliminate bank mismanagement. The bank pooled unclaimed accounts to fund education for the children of ex-slaves. Due to economic instability and accounts of fraud, the bank ultimately failed, leaving many African Americans effectively robbed by the institution. John Mercer Langston, one of the bank’s Black trustees, wrote in his 1894 autobiography, “Perhaps the failure of no institution in the country…has ever wrought larger disappointment and more disastrous results to those interested in its creation.”

This is the former location of African Free School No. 3. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was one of seven schools in the African Free School Institution, an organization dedicated to educating children of free and enslaved African Americans. The organization was founded in 1787 by members of the New York Manumission Society, who were devoted to the full abolition of African slavery. At the time of its creation, many African residents in the city were still slaves. The mission of the institution was to empower young black people and educate them, a complicated and bold proposition for the time.

Inevitably associated with Harlem, James Baldwin lived at this address in Greenwich Village for many of his most prolific writing years. He was a celebrated writer and social critic in his lifetime, exploring complicated issues such as racial, sexual, and class tensions, as a gay African-American man. Baldwin spent some of his most prolific writing years living in Greenwich Village and wrote of his time there in many of his essays, such as “Notes of a Native Son." His residence from 1958 to 1963 was 81 Horatio Street. A historic plaque memorializing his time there was unveiled on October 7, 2015.

Sandy Ground is the oldest continuously inhabited free black settlement in the United States. Its records indicate that the first African American resident, John Jackson, purchased land here in 1828. The area's name referred to the soil quality of the area, and it was a place of well-maintained homes on large plots of land. A series of harsh and discriminatory laws surrounding oyster farming in Maryland, a slave state, prompted the migration of many free blacks to Staten Island in 1841. Pictured here is the center of the community, the Rossville Zion A.M.E. Church. The church was led by Rev. Thomas James, a notable abolitionist figure who dedicated his entire life to helping escaped slaves along the Freedom Trail.

Central Park is one of New York’s beloved public spaces, however, it has a complex history. In the creation of this magnificent park, a Black community was destroyed. The destruction of Seneca Village, a once small and prosperous town, shows the complicated legacy of even our most treasured spaces. Sheltered from racial discrimination and violence of the time, 2/3rds of Seneca Village’s 250 plus residents were African American. The rest were Irish immigrants, who researchers claim, were tight knit with Seneca’s black community, a rare example of racial harmony.

Once largely lost to the historical record, the early free African American community of Weeksville included these small wood-frame homes that have survived into the 21st century. The Hunterfly Road Houses date from 1840-1880. Weeksville was founded in 1838 by James Weeks, a former slave from Virginia and NYC longshoreman. By the 1850s it was a thriving community, with churches, schools, businesses, a newspaper, and a cemetery.