Black Gotham: African Americans in 19th Century New York City
On Monday, April 4, at 6:30 p.m., Carla L. Peterson, author of Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North, reads from her new book, Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City. Moderated by Carolyn Vellenga Berman, chair of Humanities at The New School and author of Creole Crossings: Domestic Fiction and the Reform of Colonial Slavery.
Carla Peterson travels the well-known streets of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to uncover the rich and hidden history of New York’s black elite in the nineteenth century. That the book arose from her research into her own family history reminds us that in all of our families lies the story of this country., , Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
This free event will take place at Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th Street, Room 510. It is presented by the Department of Humanities and the Women Writers of the Diaspora Series, The New School for General Studies; and co-sponsored by Literary Studies, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts.