Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library. BLACK ... · out of this settlement was Fred Carman,...

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BLACK BROOKLYN PROFESSIONAL LEARNING January 14th, 2016 Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection “Oyster Bay, L.I.” 1 May 1934. Print. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library.

Transcript of Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library. BLACK ... · out of this settlement was Fred Carman,...

BLACK BROOKLYN

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING January 14th, 2016

Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

“Oyster Bay, L.I.” 1 May 1934. Print. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library.

Black Brooklyn January 14th, 2016

Brooklyn Connections, Brooklyn Public Library 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Agenda 2

Presenter Information 3

Black Brooklyn Text Set 4

Primary Sources at the Brooklyn Collection 5

Primary and Secondary Sources Lesson Plan 19

Weeksville Project Packet 31

Reflection Questions 53

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AGENDA

8:45am Check-In

9:15am Introductions and Warm Up

9:30am Primary Sources & Activities with Brooklyn Connections

10:50am Break

11:00am Presentation by Zenzele Cooper & Noel Corbin

Weeksville Heritage Center

12:00pm Lunch

1:00pm Presentation by Wilhelmina Kelly Author and Genealogist

2:30pm Group Discussion

2:50pm Evaluations and Closing

*BC = Brooklyn Collection, 2nd Floor Mezzanine

*TR = Trustees Room, 3rd Floor

Restrooms are located on both the 1st floor underneath the escalator banks

(men’s on the right, women’s on the left) and on the 3rd floor.

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PRESENTER CONTACT INFORMATION

Noel Corbin & Zenzele Cooper Weeksville Heritage Center

158 Buffalo Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11213

(718) 756-5250 [email protected]

Wilhelmina Kelly Author & Genealogist

[email protected]

Brooklyn Connections [email protected] bklynlibrary.org/connections

Brooklyn Collection Tours The Brooklyn Collection offers one-off school tours for 4th – 12th graders as well

as college and private groups. Programs can be general archival tours or curated research sessions. To book a tour, contact:

June Koffi - Senior Librarian, Brooklyn Collection

[email protected] | 718.230.2708

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FURTHER READING

We recommend the following books and resources, all available at the Brooklyn Public Library, to enhance your understanding of the African-American experience in Brooklyn,

both past and present.

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad Eric Foner Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City Carla L. Peterson Brooklyn's Promised Land: The Free Black Community of Weeksville, New York Judith Wellman Crown Heights and Weeksville (Images of America) Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly Brooklyn City Directory, 1866-67 http://www.bklynlibrary.org/citydir/ Brown Girl, Brown Stone Paule Marshall The Black Churches of Brooklyn Clarence Taylor Brooklyn's Plymouth Church in the Civil War Era: A Ministry of Freedom Frank Decker

Notable Brooklyn African Americans, Photographs from the Brooklyn Collection http://www.bklynlibrary.org/slideshows/notable_african_americans/

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PRIMARY SOURCES AT THE BROOKLYN COLLECTION

Guide to the Brooklyn Collection Overview of the Brooklyn Collection’s resources http://www.bklynlibrary.org/brooklyncollection/our-collections

Brooklyn Daily Eagle – Newspapers.com 1841 – 1955 http://bklyn.newspapers.com/

Local Newspapers on Microfilm (1835 – 1999) 88 different titles

o Williamsburg Gazette and Long Island Advertiser (1835 – 1847) o Brooklyn Weekly Eagle (1842-1855) o New York Recorder (1956-1987)

Specifically African-American in focus

Digitized City Directories 1856 – 1908 Window into business, industry, and race http://www.bklynlibrary.org/citydir/

Ephemera African-American History, African-American History to 1865 http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/Ephemera(1).pdf

Maps and Atlases 1855 – 1969 Some maps depict scenes well before 1855

Photographs Various photographers and photo collections http://www.bklynlibrary.org/slideshows/brooklyn_life_african_americans http://www.bklynlibrary.org/slideshows/notable_african_americans

Primary and Secondary Books 1830s – Present

Special Collections African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church Collection

o Financial records and correspondence Black News, 1969 – 1984 http://www.bklynlibrary.org/brooklyncollection/finding-aid/ Civil Rights in Brooklyn

o A wide selection of Civil Rights and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) documents

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PRIMARY SOURCES &

LESSON PLANS

“Crow Hill.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle 14 Aug 1873. Print.

Transcription: CROW HILL

What It Was Twenty Years Ago, and What It Is Now – Its First Church – How the Negroes

Lived – Buying Meat from Bone Wagons – Sheepsheads at a cent a piece – Its Liquor Saloons and Gabling Houses.

An Eagle reporter went through Crow Hill recently and collected some facts about it of

some interest. Every one knows where Crow Hill is – away up on the righthand side of Atlantic avenue, embracing acres of ground, which, however, is now cut through and gridironed by streets. Twenty years ago all above Brooklyn avenue was a dense mass of woods, that is on the other side of Atlantic. From that place to East New York the ground was hilly, swampy, and covered with trees. This was the appearance of things when the darkies first too up their abode and settled there, which they did in 1850. The reporter was in conversation with an old retired policeman, who has seen much of Crow Hill, remembers it from the time it first became known as a settlement until to-day… “How did their settlement get to be named Crow Hill?” “Well, they had to live away from the white people, and they got up there in these woods. The woods were at that time full of crows, and it was called Crow Hill, partly because there were a great many crows there and partly on account of the people nicknaming the darkies ‘crows,’ too. “Every colored person you met in Brooklyn in those days wouldn’t say ‘Do you know where such and such a street is?’ but they’d say, ‘Which is the way to Crow Hill?’ If they had any colored friends living this side of the river that’s where they’d find them.”

HOW THEY LIVED. “What did these darkies do for a living at this time?” “They most all used to work in the fish, Fulton and Washington markets, in New York, and

would trudge there night and morning. The ‘hill’ on which they lived consisted of a good many hills, and they used to inhabit little shanties that they’d put up themselves – regular huts – they weren’t fit to be called shanties. Then they had pigs and geese, ducks, &c., and raised little things, and called the settlement their own. Among themselves they were peaceable enough. Sometimes they’d have a skirmish and cut each other with razors and knives; but, as a rule, they were pretty orderly. But you must remember they were not as much at liberty then as now, and that had a good deal to do with it.

THE FIRST CHURCH AND GIN MILL. “About eighteen years ago the first colored church was built. It was made of logs and

timber and would hold about twenty or thirty comfortably. It was located where Schenectady avenue and Dean streets not intersect, for at that time the streets were not cut through, even Atlantic and Fulton avenues were not open to East New York. The first minister they had was a man named Johnson, and he used to preach every Sunday to such as wanted to go to church. “About the same time that the good men put up the church, the devil, not to be outdone, sent a few enterprising Dutchmen up in that direction to open gin mills. One man, the first almost who kept store there, was a Low Dutchman, and he was called Cheap John. Transcription Cont.

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He sold groceries of the commonest kind to the darkies, and also a soda water or sassaparilla bottle full of liquor for three cents, bottle and all! He kept at the corner of Stuyvesant and Fulton avenues, and he made his money out of the colored folks. He’s rich now.

… “The darkies used to live in those days on the cheapest they could get. They’d bring scraps

of fish home from the market, and when the bone wagons used to pass through their settlement to go to Schwaniweidel’s bone factory, they used to go to the driver and buy sheep’s heads for a penny apiece.

The drivers were not allowed to sell any bones, but the darkies used to go to the bone factory and actually buy the meat, after it had been boiled off the bones there, to make soup with. Then, in the Hunterfly Road, Henry and Chris Steers kept a place where they used to sell liquor to the darkies. They made a fortune out of it, too, and are now well off.

THE NEGROES’ SUNDAY OUT, however, was invariably spent at Bob Williams’s, who used to keep what was called a hotel. He rented in a lot of the trees and made a sort of park out of them, and then on Sundays, when the Crow Hill folks would be all dressed up and receiving their friends from New York, they’d go over to Bob’s place and that would be crowded. They used to have high old times there. Singing, dancing and banjo playing was going on all the time. Another man who made money out of this settlement was Fred Carman, who keeps at the corner of Wyckoff and Dean Streets.

THE DARKIES DRIVEN OUT. “In time the city limits extended; the whites kept buying property and getting nearer and nearer to the darkies, who were thus driven further out, until at last Crow Hill assumed the appearance it has to-day, all intersected with streets and built up with houses. Now there is as many whites as blacks there; then there was not a single white person living among them, except those who kept stores and got rich off them by selling them liquor. “When the war came on and when the darkey settlement was at the strongest, there were lots of gambling shops started there. Dirty dens were established and draw poker was indulged in for just such stakes as the men could afford to play for. Then people used to get ‘laid out’ and robbed in that neighborhood, and Crow Hill got a deservedly bad name. There has been one or two murders committed there. The last was about four years ago when John Drake, a colored man killed Fitzpatrick on a Sunday morning. The fights among the common shite people, who gradually mixed in and settled with the darkies used to be of frequent occurrence and serious character. The darkies always fought with razors or clubs and when they put the former weapon to scientific use they made trouble.

… Now Crow Hill property is increasing in value daily, the darkies are being forced further

away from the city – many of them live in East New York, at Jamaica, and in New Brooklyn, but for all that Crow Hill earned a bad name, which sticks to it now, and will damage it commercially for a long time to come.

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Brainerd, George. Negro Family. 187-?. Print. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library.

View of African American family of five sitting on Coney Island beach with tent and section of boardwalk in background.

Brooklyn Eagle. Bridge Street A. W. M. E. Church as it looked in 1931. 1931. Print. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library.

Facade of Bridge Street African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church, 309 Bridge Street, and sign: The Bridge Street African-Methodist-Episcopal-Church, The Oldest Negro Religious Organization in The Borough of Brooklyn, Organized in 1818.

Use abbreviations to decode directory page, printed on the other side.

Brooklyn City Directory 1866-1867. Brooklyn: City of Brooklyn, 1867. Print.

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USING PRIMARY & SECONDARY SOURCES LESSON PLAN

BASEBALL IN WEEKSVILLE

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AIM:

Students will learn why it is important to use both primary and secondary sources when doing research.

OBJECTIVE:

Students will: Analyze a primary source Analyze a secondary source Compare and contrast multiple sources on the same topic Discuss bias and how to read past it Synthesize information from both sources to complete an activity Explore early baseball in Weeksville

MATERIALS:

Primary Source: “Base Ball “ from Brooklyn Daily Eagle Secondary Source: Brooklyn’s Promised Land excerpt Using Primary and Secondary Sources Handout Postcard template

o Three postcards per page, print double sided and cut apart

PROCEDURE:

1. Warm up discussion a. Students should be able to define primary and secondary source b. Ask “Why might it be important to use both primary and

secondary sources in your research?” c. Introduce or reintroduce Weeksville

i. A brief history will be helpful for the lesson 2. Primary Source Analysis

a. Students read through source and annotate silently b. Read source aloud as a class c. Ask students if they have initial questions or thoughts

3. Using Primary and Secondary Sources Handout - Primary a. Invite students to summarize the article by using the organizer on

the worksheet b. Discuss & define bias prior to moving on to the second question

i. Explain that many of the terms used in the article are now considered derogatory (Sambo, Dinah, pickaninny, dusky, etc.)

ii. Ask students to discuss the sources validity iii. Help students focus on undisputed facts, not simply the

opinion of the reporter iv. Students should recognize that sources with a bias are

often still valid as long as the bias can be identified and separated from the facts; recognize that bias implies another side exists

c. Students will finish the primary source side of the handout 4. Secondary Source Analysis

a. Introduce secondary source article and explain that the article is on the same topic as the primary, but complied from many different sources

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b. Students read through source and annotate silently c. Read source aloud as a class d. Ask students if they have initial questions or thoughts

5. Using Primary and Secondary Sources Handout – Secondary a. Students will complete the secondary source side of the handout

i. Use the second and third question to engage in discussion ii. Ask the warm up question again: “Why might it be

important to use both primary and secondary sources in your research?” and have students share out, looking to see if any ideas or opinions changed

6. Post Card Activity a. Students will create a post card using the following prompt:

Write a postcard to a family member or friend detailing a baseball game you watched or played in during the 1860s. Include information from BOTH sources.

b. Optional: The postcard template allows for text on one side and an image on the other

c. Example of synthesis: i. Primary: Men, women, and children were at the game,

some well-known players, everyone was cheering ii. Secondary: The Weeksville Unknowns were first noted in

1860, the Garnet Club was another Weeksville team,

ASSESSMENT: Student work should be collected to check for comprehension Active class discussion will provide assessment throughout the lesson When students do future research, encourage them to show evidence

of using both primary and secondary sources in their work

DIFFERENTIATION: For lower level/struggling students Work through handout as a class Allow more time for silent annotation Invite students to draw a picture using their newly acquired

knowledge, focusing less on synthesis of multiple sources For higher level students

Locate and add a third source, making the final activity more challenging

Ask students to write letters as opposed to postcards, lengthening the final activity

C.C.S.S. ADDRESSED: 6th – 8th Grade CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2 - Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.9 -Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic.

9th – 10th Grade CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.2 - Determine the central ideas or information

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of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.9 - Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

11th – 12th Grade CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2 - Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.11-12.9 - Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

NAME: _______________________________________

USING PRIMARY & SECONDARY SOURCES PRIMARY TEXT

1. Summarize the article using one to two sentences per paragraph. What is the gist of each paragraph?

Paragraph 1: Paragraph 2: Paragraph 3: Paragraph 4:

2. This article, written by a white person in 1862, has a clear bias. What facts might be suspect?

3. What are two questions that you have about baseball in Weeksville after reading this article?

1. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

USING PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES SECONDARY TEXT

1. What are three NEW pieces of information gained from this text?

1. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

3. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What facts stated within the secondary source contradict statements within the primary source?

3. What are some pieces of information that you gained from the primary text that you did not see within the secondary text?

4. Why is it important to use both primary and secondary sources for your research?

Base Ball.

A New Sensation In Base Ball Circles – Sambo As A Ball Player, And Dinah As An Emulator – Unknown of Weeksville vs. Monitor of Brooklyn.

The return match between the Atlantic and Harlem Clubs did not take place as appointed

yesterday afternoon, but was postponed on account of the unfit condition of the grounds for playing. Among the large crowd that visited the ground was our reporter, who, on learning that the match would not be played, went on a perambulating tour through the precincts of Bedford, waiting for something to “turn up.”

He had not proceeded far when he discovered a crowd assembled on the grounds in the vicinity of

the Yukaton Skating Pond, and on repairing to the locality, found a match in progress between the Unknown and Monitor Clubs – both of African descent. Quite a large assemblage encircled the contestants, who were every one as black as the ace of spades. Among the assemblage we noticed a number of old and well known players, who seemed to enjoy the game more heartily than if they had been the players themselves. The dusky contestants enjoyed the game hugely, and to use a common phrase, they “did the thing genteely.”

Dinah, all eyes, was there to applaud, and the game passed off most satisfactorily. All appeared to

have a very jolly time, and the little piccaninnies laughed with the rest. It would have done Beecher, Greeley, or any other of the luminaries of the radical wing of the Republican party good to have been present. The playing was quite spirited, and the fates delivered a victory for the Unknown. The occasion was the first of a series. We append the score:

Unknown. In. R. Monitor. In. R. Pole. 3d b 5 2 Dudley, 1st b 3 2 V. Thompson. 1 f 2 7 W. Cook. r f 2 2 Wright, 2d b 9 8 Williams, s s 2 1 J. Thompson. P 5 1 Marshall, 3d b 4 1 Smith, c f 6 9 G. Abrams, p 3 2 Johnson, c. 7 2 Brown, c 3 3 A. Thompson, 1st b. 5 4 Cook, 1 f 4 1 Durant. r f. 4 5 Orater, 2d b 3 2 Harvey, s. 3 4 J. Abrams, c f 3 1 41 15

Runs Made In Each Inning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Unknown 3 4 3 7 14 1 7 2 8 41 Monitor 3 3 0 0 2 1 1 5 0 15

Umpire – C. Ophante. Of the Hamilton of Newark Scorers – Baker, Unknown; Jones, Monitor This is the first match to our knowledge that has been played in this city between players of African descent.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle 17 Oct 1862.

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Brooklyn Daily Eagle 17 Oct 1862.

SECONDARY SOURCE

Wellman, Judith. Brooklyn’s Promised Land. New York: New York University Press, 2014. P. 74-75. Print.

By 1860, Weeksville had its own baseball team, the

Weeksville Unknowns. On January 21st, 1860, the Anglo-African

reported on a game between the Weeksville Unknowns and the

Henson Baseball Club of Jamaica. Weeksville lost. This was only

fourteen years after the first official baseball had been played at the

Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1846 and only three years

after the formation of the first amateur league, the National

Association of Base Ball Players. Weeksville residents continued to

enjoy local baseball games for years, naming one of their teams the

Garnet Club, presumably after Rev. Henry Highland Garnet,

minister and activist. By the 1880s, Weeksville women had their

own baseball team. Sometimes they took their practice too far, as in

1889, when team members Mary Thompson and Mary Jackson,

from Crow Hill, picked up a man named Luke Kenney “for a ball and

knocked him all over the field with baseball bats.”

Other forms of organized recreation also attracted Weeksville

residents. In 1860, the “Ladies of Brooklyn and Weeksville” worked

together, for example, for a “Grand Concert and Opera Supper.”

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WEEKSVILLE PROJECT PACKET

NAME: ________________________________________________________________

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INTRODUCTORY READING: "Weeksville." The Encyclopedia of New York. 2010. Print.

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DOCUMENT 1a: Colton, J.H. Map of the country thirty three miles around the city of New York. 1852. Mapping Weeksville. Brooklyn Historical Society Blog, 16 Mar. 2012. Web. 9 Jan 2014.

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DOCUMENT 1b: Weeksville Brooklyn Map. Digital Image, 30 Aug 2009. Web. 9 Jan 2014.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Take a look at DOCUMENT 1a. What year do you think it comes from?

2. List the towns you see on DOCUMENT 1a:

3. Circle Weeksville on DOCUMENT 1a and describe where it’s located:

4. DOCUMENT 1b is a modern estimate of Weeksville’s location. What neighborhoods surround it?

5. What do you think the “Hunterfly Road” track represents on DOCUMENT 1b?

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DOCUMENT 2a: “Weeksville Bash at BAM.” 9 Sept 1973. Print. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library.

There are not many surviving images of the people who lived in Weeksville. The date that this photograph was taken is unknown, but it was most likely sometime in the 1840s.

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DOCUMENT 2b: Black History, A Celebration at the Brooklyn Museum. Print. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Describe the person in DOCUMENT 2a:

2. Describe the people in DOCUMENT 2b:

3. DOCUMENT 2a and DOCUMENT 2b are pictures of previous Weeksville residents. What does their dress tell you about the people who lived in this neighborhood?

4. Are the people in the photographs dressed differently than people today? What has changed and what has stayed the same? Be specific.

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DOCUMENT 3a: Berry, Bertelle. "First Black Woman Doctor." New York Amsterdam News 18 May 1974. Print.

DOCUMENT 3b: Maynard, Joan, and Gwen Cottman. Weeksville, Then & Now: The Search to Discover, the Effort to Preserve, Memories of Self in Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn, NY: Society for the Preservation of Weeksville & Bedford-Stuyvesant History, 1983. Print.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. According to DOCUMENT 3a, who was Susan McKinney Stewart?

2. Why do you think Susan McKinney Stewart’s achievements are important to Weeksville history?

3. Who was Moses Cobb, according to DOCUMENT 3b?

4. Why did Moses Cobb move to Weeksville? What opportunities do you think Weeksville gave to former slaves like Cobb?

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DOCUMENT 4: "Weeksville Negro Church Reaches Age of 90 Years." Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 16 Mar. 1935: 9. Print.

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Transcript

Weeksville Negro Church Reaches Age of 90 Years ______________

Bethel African Methodists to Mark Anniversary by Elaborate Program

______________

Who knows where Weeksville is? For the benefit of the puzzled, Weeksville is in Brooklyn, settled as a village over a century ago and named from James Weeks, the first colored Freeman to purchase property in that section. The old village of Weeksville lies between what is now Howard Ave., Sumner Ave., Bergen St. and Decatur St., and has at least 15 Negro churches grown from the one church founded 90 years ago. The Bethel African Methodist Church was established in 1845 under the direction of Bishop Paul Quinn and laid its cornerstone June 15, 1845. Three churches have been built, the present site being Schenectady Ave. and Dean St. The church from the beginning has stood as a church, a school and a social center for the colored population which now numbers 15,000 in its adult church membership, with a church property valuation of over $250,000.

Loyal Americans Members of Bethel Church have served in three wars in Uncle Sam’s service. Frank Jackson, now an old man and senior steward of the church, served on the U.S.S. Trenton which escorted General Grant on his famous tour around the world. The 90th anniversary program will open on Sunday, March 31 and continue through April 14 with outstanding leaders, both Negro and white co-operating. The Rev. Louis Harding Midgette, pastor, was born in the South and trained in the North and was converted by Mr. Jackson, then his Sunday School teacher. He is a graduate of Lincoln University, Dew Theological Seminary and Y.M.C.A College at Springfield, Mass.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Where does DOCUMENT 4 say Weeksville is located?

2. What is this document celebrating?

3. Why do you think this celebration is important to the Weeksville community? Do you think there are many Black churches that are as old as Bethel African Methodist Church? Why or why not?

4. According to the document, what contributions have members of Bethel African Methodist Church made to their country?

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DOCUMENT 5b: “Boys Separating Cream and Churning.” Review Covering Forty-five Years of Work of Brooklyn Howard Colored Orphan Asylum. 1912. Print.

DOCUMENT 5a: “Boys Milking in Barn Yard.” Review Covering Forty-five Years of Work of Brooklyn Howard Colored Orphan Asylum. 1912. Print.

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DOCUMENT 5d: “Cooking Class.” Review Covering Forty-five Years of Work of Brooklyn Howard Colored Orphan Asylum. 1912. Print.

DOCUMENT 5c: “Making Mats of Corn Shucks. Directed by Domestic Science Teacher.” Review Covering Forty-five Years of Work of Brooklyn Howard Colored Orphan Asylum. 1912. Print.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. DOCUMENTS 5a-d come from the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Weeksville. According to the images, who do you think this asylum was for?

2. What skills is the Asylum teaching the children in these images?

3. Why do you think it was important to have an orphan’s asylum in Weeksville?

4. What other institutions do we have in our neighborhoods today?

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DOCUMENT 6: "The Excitement in Brooklyn." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 15 Jul 1863: 2. Print.

Adaptation

THE EXCITEMENT IN BROOKLYN.

Affairs in the city remain quiet and orderly. No attempt appears to have been made to create a disturbance. Those inclined to aid in disreputable scenes proceeded to New York and left us in the enjoyment of peace.

THE COLORED PEOPLE The colored people are beginning to show

themselves again in the streets this morning. Yesterday whole families vacated their residences in some parts of the city, and went off somewhere to secure safety. Some men were chased and beaten, but nothing that would be called serious occurred. A black man going along Hudson avenue was attacked and chased some distance. He belonged to the Navy. A number of persons placed themselves between the pursuers and the negro, and he escaped and got inside the Navy Yard gate in safety. Pink row, in Canton street, is entirely vacated. It was occupied by colored people. They have gone, no one knows where. The same is the case in some other localities abounding in colored folks; but, as we stated previously, nothing of a very serious character occurred, and the black people were much more alarmed on account of the scenes in New York than from actual violence or threats of harm here.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

In 1863, during the Civil War, there was a draft riot in New York City. Men were conscripted, or forced, by the government to sign up to fight in the war. Some white people, many poor and working class, blamed Black people for this and took out their anger on Black New Yorkers.

1. What would you guess this document is about from reading DOCUMENT 6’s headlines only?

2. What city is DOCUMENT 6 talking about? Does the article describe there being much violence in there?

3. According to this document, what were the white rioters doing to Black people?

4. What DOCUMENT 6 doesn’t tell you is that many frightened Black people fled to Weeksville during this time. Why was do you think Weeksville was a safe place for them?

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DOCUMENT 7a: Austin, Daniel Berry. Clove Road at Bergen St. 190-. Brooklyn Collection,

Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn. Print.

DOCUMENT 7b: Save the Memories of Self. Brooklyn Collection, Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn. Print.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: As Brooklyn grew bigger in the 1900s, much of Weeksville merged into the neighborhoods surrounding it and almost disappeared entirely. However, in 1968 some pieces of Weeksville were rediscovered.

1. According to DOCUMENT 7b, what remains of Weeksville?

2. This document was drafted by the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History. What does this society hope to build?

3. Why does the society think it’s important to restore the Weeksville houses?

4. Why do you think it’s important for people to know about Weeksville? What do you think Weeksville means to Black people living in Brooklyn today?

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VOCABULARY: Abound: full of Cornerstone: a stone laid in the corner foundation of a newly built building Disreputable: disorderly General Grant: Union general during the Civil War and later 18th president of the U.S. Locality: neighborhood or place Pursuer: a person who follows or hopes to capture someone else Uncle Sam: personification of the U.S. government Vacate: leave

Black Brooklyn January 14th, 2016

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DAILY REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. What are the challenges of incorporating local history into your curriculum?

2. Why should students in Brooklyn learn about Weeksville and other early African-American communities?

3. What sources (documents, letters, etc.)/topics might help you bring early African-American history into your teaching? How?

4. What do you find most challenging about getting your students invested in history?

Black Brooklyn January 14th, 2016

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GROUP DISCUSSION

What are some practical ways that you can apply information or ideas from today’s workshop to your teaching? As a group, please identify at least three ideas and be

prepared to share out.

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