The International Workers Order (IWO) was located at 80 Fifth Avenue for its entire lifetime, from 1930 until 1954. This progressive mutual-benefit fraternal organization was a pioneering force in the U.S. labor movement and took some incredibly powerful positions for civil rights. The IWO operated under the principle that there would be “No Jim Crow in the IWO.” At its height, the consortium included 188,000 members from many political, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. IWO vice president and Harlem resident Louise Thompson Patterson was one of many notable activists to fight for racial equality. The IWO supported campaigns such as the federal anti-lynching bill, the permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee, the integration of the armed forces, the elimination of Jim Crow segregation in public facilities, and the protection of Black voting rights. Patterson also organized the Harlem Suitcase Theater that featured work by Langston Hughes and actors Butterfly McQueen and Robert Earl Jones.

55 Fifth Avenue bears great significance in American music and African American history. Columbia Phonograph Company moved to 55 Fifth Avenue in 1926 and is now known as Columbia Records; OKeh Records was founded in 1916 by Otto K.E. Heinemann and moved to 55 Fifth Avenue shortly after Columbia did. OKeh eventually merged with Columbia but initially established a strong reputation for producing “race records”: recordings by and for African Americans, including some of the early greats of jazz and blues, such as Louis Armstrong. OKeH’s recording studios were some of the first integrated musical recordings ever took place, and where a young Billie Holiday made her first recordings. In addition to Holiday, notable African American musicians such as Bessie Smith, Garland Wilson, Ethel Waters, and Benny Carter recorded here.

Starting in the 1930s, the National Negro Congress was located at 35 East 12th. The National Negreo Congress was founded to combat Black people's oppression in the United States, especially in the workforce. The National Negro Congress’s position in this building was strategically close to the epicenter of the New York labor movement and in the same building as the Communist Party. The location of the National Negro Congress was significant because, despite organizations like the IWO fighting for integration and African American civil rights, this was not the norm.

Over the years, the four buildings that comprised the Albert Hotel hosted many of the most prominent names in American arts, literature, music, and radical politics. According to the State and National Register Report for the Hotel Albert, the Hotel St. Stephen, which the Hotel Albert absorbed in 1895, accepted some African American guests as early as 1889. Notable guests included Charles S. Johnson, the first Black president of Fisk University; in 1926, Chester Himes was listed at this address in the 1950s, Richard Wright stayed here in 1949, and Charles Wright stayed here in the 1960s.

Renowned photographer Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) lived and had a studio here beginning in the 1930s, above the famed Corner Book Shop. In 1936, Siskind founded the Photographer League’s Feature Group, which documented New York City, focusing especially on Harlem. Siskind’s photos in the Harlem exhibition belong to one of Harlem's most important visual records during the Great Depression.

“One of the most notable sculptors of the twentieth century” according to the National Women’s History Museum, the celebrated African American artist, educator, and self-described “people’s sculptor” Selma Hortense Burke lived and worked at 88 East 10th Street from 1944 until at least 1949, according to New York City directories. Among her many accomplishments, Burke is celebrated for her highly regarded portrayals of towering African American figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Booker T. Washington, and Mary McLeod Bethune, for her significance in the Harlem Renaissance, for her unabashed drawing upon African models for her art, and for achieving success as a Black woman sculptor at a time when few female or Black artists, and even fewer Black female artists, were able to achieve any success or recognition in the United States.

The great African American jazz musician Randy Weston lived at 204 East 13th Street in the 1960s, during the peak of his jazz career. This section of the East Village was a hub of jazz and blues music in the United States when Charlie “Bird” Parker and Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter both called the neighborhood home. Weston incorporated African musical elements in his work and played an important role in advancing the argument, now widely accepted, that the roots of jazz trace back to African music. Weston was also a key political figure in global civil rights activism. As African countries fought for freedom from colonial exploitation in the mid-20th century, Weston saluted their struggles in his music.

This building served as the headquarters of the NAACP (founded Feb. 12, 1909). In 1914, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded. While other national organizations had been established to advance civil rights for African Americans, none lasted more than a few years, and none had the broad and growing institutional support the NAACP attracted. The Crisis magazine, published from 70 Fifth Avenue from 1914 until the mid-1920, was funded and edited by W.E.B. DuBois. Called “the most widely read and influential periodical about race and social justice in U.S. history,” The Crisis (originally subtitled ‘A Record of the Darker Races’) was founded as the house magazine of the NAACP. In 2019, Village Preservation succeeded in achieving landmark status for this building.

RPM STUDIOS operated from 1976-2004 at 12 (10-12) East 12th Street during a golden age of music and recording in NYC. RPM’s studios were where several African American recording artists created their first prominent albums, including Cassandra Wilson ("Blue Night 'Til Dawn"), Maxwell ("Urban Hang Suite"), Meshell Ndegeocello ("Peace Beyond Passion''), and Lauryn Hill ("The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill"). Many other African American and Black artists recorded here, including Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige (“My Life”), Vanessa Williams ("Comfort Zone" and "The Sweetest Days"), Lenny Kravitz (“Mama Said”), Public Enemy with Chuck D and Flav-o-Flav, Herbie Hancock ("Future Shock"), Genuwine, RZA, Q-Tip, Mtume, Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, Living Colour, D'Angelo ("Brown Sugar").

Grove Press, called “the era’s most explosive and influential publishing house” and “the most innovative publisher of the postwar era,” was founded in 1947. In 1964, Grove Press moved to 80 University Place. Here it published The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This groundbreaking book was Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alex Haley’s first book and was based on over 50 interviews Haley conducted with Malcolm X in his studio at 92 Grove Street. The text has played an enormous role in shaping the legacy and perception of the African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X.

Malcolm X was heavily involved with the American Negro Labor Congress (ANLC), located at the St. Dennis Hotel. The ANLC published The Liberator from room 338. Prominent figures involved in the civil rights movement were also connected with the ANLC at the St. Dennis Hotel, including Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Paul Robeson.

The University Place Book Shop, one of Book Row’s longest-running shops, was opened on University Place by Walter Goldwater in 1932 and moved to 821 Broadway in the 1970s, where it stayed until 1995. The University Place Book Shop was renowned for its extensive selection of books by Black authors and Black Studies, Caribbean Studies, and African Studies.

"The Lancaster," an 1887 Queen Anne style James Renwick building, is an innovative example of the French Flat, or a middle-class apartment building. Charles Mingus, an iconic jazz musician and composer, lived here with his fiancée in 1972. Mingus used his music to speak to the troubles facing Black and African American communities. In 1959, he recorded Fables of Fabus inspired by the governor of Arkansas, Orval E. Fabus. In 1957, Fabus refused entry to nine African American students at the Little Rock High School by calling the National Guard.