Virtual Speaker Series: The Black Woods with Amy Godine

The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier

The Black Woods is the history of a land-rich upstate abolitionist's effort to enfranchise Black New Yorkers with gifts of Adirondack land in the mid-19th century. In 1846, Gerrit Smith, donor of 3,000 deeds, hoped to help his Black "grantees" gain access to the ballot at a time when the vote was withheld from Black New Yorkers lacking $250 in land. Smith's "scheme of justice and benevolence" enacted principles of affirmative action and suffrage justice before these programs had a name. But because only a few hundred Black people ever moved to the Adirondacks in response to Smith's largesse, historians dismissed his effort as a bust. The book challenges this verdict and discovers ways Smith's plan succeeded beyond anything he ever guessed.

From Saratoga Springs, New York, independent scholar Amy Godine has been writing and speaking about ethnic, migratory, and Black Adirondack history for more than three decades. Exhibits she has curated include Dreaming of Timbuctoo at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba, New York.

Register to attend here.