The History Alliance of Kingston (HAK) is pleased to announce its first event of 2021! HAK will introduce to the public our newest project: the Black History of the Hudson Valley Collaborative Research Project in a Zoom presentation as part of Black History Month Kingston on Monday, February 22, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. 

Black History is woven into the fabric of our region’s past, but where can we go to learn about it? The History Alliance of Kingston is designing a digital guide to compile existing Black History of the Hudson Valley resources and collect new ones for researchers and the general public alike. This effort builds on work done by and with the region’s Black community for a long time, including Dr. A.J. Williams-Myers’s research, the creation of the African Roots Center, the Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley, and many more community projects.

         We are working to right a serious wrong. Too little has been written about the Black history of our region, and our institutions did not consciously collect or catalogue items focused on these stories. Now, as our member institutions independently undertake Black history research projects and respond to requests from researchers who are eager to learn more, we decided to pool our resources in an effort to share the source materials that can help tell a more complete story. Our goal is to make these resources — and stories– more accessible for researchers and the general public. 

At this public program, HAK members will share an early draft of our Black History of the Hudson Valley Collaborative Research Project, a collection of resources (both published and not) that we have compiled with the help of scholars in the field. We will also share several research projects currently in-progress and invite the broader community to contribute their knowledge. The aim of this session is to introduce this project, and to invite the broader community to help us identify existing resources for inclusion in this guide– including personal and family stories and collections. Whether or not you can attend, we invite you to contribute your research and collections to it, and to spread the word about it!

         The event will be held on Monday, February 22nd, from 7-8pm on Zoom. Advance registration is required to attend the event. To get the link and register, you can find the event on our Facebook page.

by Courtney McNamara, D&H Canal Historical Society
published February 4, 20201 in the Kingston Wire