11/20 Seneca Village: A Story of Black Freedom and Manhattan Real Estate: Talk & Signing with Alexander Manevitz
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About this event
We are so proud of community member and professor Alexander Manevitz for his book Seneca Village: A Story of Black Freedom and Manhattan Real Estate. Alexander will be in conversation with Davarian L. Baldwin. More about the book: In Seneca Village, Alexander Manevitz showcases the ideas of freedom that underpinned this remarkable community, built in upper Manhattan with the intent to foster Black social, economic, and political self-determination. Between 1825 and 1853, free African Americans bought land and built an innovative settlement. Then, through the 1850s, New York City forcibly evicted the residents, seized the land, and destroyed the buildings, burying this thriving neighborhood under the landscape of the new Central Park. In this most in-depth investigation to date of Seneca Village, Manevitz reconstructs the essential history of the community from the overlooked traces they left behind, focusing on the interconnected lives of Seneca Villagers and the daily work of liberation. Decades before the Civil War and Reconstruction, they honed a vision of Black freedom on their own terms, fighting to create space for themselves in a country that promised liberty for all but denied it to many. More about Alexander: Alexander Manevitz is a historian, educator, and public scholar on race, freedom, and urbanism in the nineteenth-century United States and New York City. He is a Assistant Professor of History at Baruch College, City University of New York. Manevitz specializes in African American history, the history of early American capitalism, and how a diverse array of Americans shaped the growth of the cities we live in today. More about Davarian: Davarian L. Baldwin is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and public advocate. He is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Founding Director of the Smart Cities Research Lab at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. His academic and political commitments have focused on global cities and particularly the diverse and marginalized communities that struggle to maintain sustainable lives in urban locales. Baldwin is the award-winning author of several books, most recently, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. He also served as the consultant and text author for The World of the Harlem Renaissance: A Jigsaw Puzzle (2022). Baldwin sits on the executive committee of Scholars for Social Justice and the national council of the American Association of University Professors. His commentaries and opinions have been featured in numerous outlets from NBC News, BBC, and HULU to USA Today, The Washington Post, and TIME magazine. Baldwin was named a 2022 Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation for his work.
Who
- Alexander ManevitzAuthor
The book
- Seneca Village: A Story of Black Freedom and Manhattan Real EstateAlexander Manevitz
Venue
More at Possible Futures
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Listing sourced from Possible Futures (original page). Details can change — confirm with the venue.