The Hudson Valley plays a momentous role in black history, yet the actual stories that brought us to where we are today are generally unknown to most people and oftentimes differ substantially from what we are taught at a young age.

Understanding the history of our country means being aware that many of us were taught in our early education that in the era of slavery, the South was predominantly bad when in reality, the truth is much greyer than that. In fact, New York State held the biggest slave markets in the country during the early 1700s in both NYC and Albany, and for a time, slavery was as firmly entrenched in the North as it was in the South.