In 1808, a group of Ethiopian seamen were visiting New York and attended the First Baptist Church in the City of New York for Sunday services. Disgusted by the segregation they were subjected to they, along with allied African American parishioners, left in protest. The new congregation they began together was called the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Abyssinian being the ... Read More »
Tag Archives: harlem
Chronicles: Black Harlem’s Founding Father
Harlem’s history usually elicits images and memories of it as the longtime citadel of black American life, but were it not for one enterprising young man from Massachusetts, such history might have never been written. When Philip Payton arrived in New York in 1899, real estate speculators were quickly throwing up modern apartment buildings and brownstones in formerly rural ... Read More »
Extended Travel: Harlem, NY
Millions of tourists flock to New York City each year but it is not often that they venture to Manhattan Island’s northernmost neighborhood, Harlem. Originally settled in 1658 by Peter Stuyvesant under Dutch rule, Nieuw Haarlem was lush agricultural land distinctly separate from Nieuw Amsterdam at Manhattan’s southern tip. Since then, Harlem has seen many rises and falls, ... Read More »