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Fighting “Slavery, that Foul Giant of Sin and Darkness”: The Black Community of the Nineteenth Century

June 16, 2022
7:00 p.m.
Boardman Road Branch Library 141 Boardman Rd, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

Free Blacks in the Queen City did not take for granted the freedom extended to them after 1827 by New York State’s gradual manumission law. They continued to identify with their enslaved brothers and sisters elsewhere in the country, and recognized their own continuing vulnerability to slave kidnappers. This talk will review the ways in which African Americans in Poughkeepsie agitated against slavery, remained vigilant against abductions of themselves, and celebrated emancipations when they occurred in the years before the Civil War.

Guest presenter is Dr. Myra Armstead, Vice President for Academic Inclusive Excellence and Lyford Paterson Edwards and Helen Gray Edwards Professor of Historical Studies at Bard College.

Masks may be required based on local health conditions.

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