History and Heritage

Afro-Americans in New Jersey: A Short History

by Giles R. Wright, Director, Afro-American History Program, New Jersey Historical Commission

The long Afro-American presence in New Jersey has had a paradoxical and bittersweet quality. Some observers believe that New Jersey has had the worst race relations of the northeastern states. Still, over the years the state has served as a major area of settlement for southern blacks, offering a kind of refuge or "Balm in Gilead," to cite the old Negro spiritual. Viewed through the prism of the Afro-American experience, New Jersey offers contrasting images: a place of hostility and hardship necessitating struggle, and yet a place of succor and opportunity permitting achievement.

In its treatment of Afro-Americans, New Jersey has often been likened to the South. In 1823, for example, a traveler from Connecticut passing through New Jersey expressed a common northern view and called New Jersey "the land of slavery." Twenty-six years later, Dr. John S. Rock of Salem, a leading black New Jerseyan, also linked the state with the South. When it was proposed to the legislature that New Jersey secede from the Union because the Union included the slave-holding southern states, he considered the idea hypocritical because slavery still existed in New Jersey. The state, he said, "has never treated us as men .She has always been an ardent supporter of the 'peculiar institution' [slavery] - the watchdog for the Southern plantations; and unless she shows her faith by her works, we will not believe in her." .. New Jersey was the last northern state to enact legislation abolishing slavery; a law passed in 1804 established a system of gradual emancipation. This system actually allowed slavery to continue down to the 1860s, later than in any other northern state. (Read full publication)

PROFILES OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

AFRICA

African Voices
Discover the wonders of this amazing continent and its diverse 797 million people, encompassing 54 countries with over 1,000 languages. - Click onto the following links to exlpore PBS' Africa and the National Museum of Natural History's African Voices .

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LATIN AMERICA

Afro-Latin Heritage
Explore the origins and contemporary communities of the black populace of Latin America including, Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico (8%), Venezuela, Peru and Colombia. (more)

Capoeira: A Growing Latin American Art Form

Developed over 400 years ago by African slaves who were brought to Brazil, Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian martial art form and ritual that encompasses (among many other things) elements of dance, ritual, self-defense, acrobatics and self-expression. Today, it is quickly becoming one of the fastest growing art forms around the world. (more)

Library of Congress Handbook of Latin American Studies
The Handbook is a bibliography on Latin America consisting of works selected and annotated by scholars. Edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, the multidisciplinary Handbook alternates annually between the social sciences and the humanities. Each year, more than 130 academics from around the world choose over 5,000 works for inclusion in the Handbook. Continuously published since 1936, the Handbook offers Latin Americanists an essential guide to available resources. (more)

African Americans and National Identities in Central America
An interdisciplinary, multinational research program to reconceptualize and document, both visually and textually, the history of people of African descent in Central America. (more)

Notable Afro-Latin Leader: Arturo Alfonso Schomburg
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg also known as Arthur Schomburg, (January 24, 1874 - June 8, 1938), was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Schomburg, known as "The Father of Black History," was a celebrated historian, writer and activist. In 1926, Schomburg's personal collection was added to the Division of Negro Literature, History and Prints of the 135th Street Branch of The New York Public Library.
Subsequently, Schomburg served as curator of the division from 1932 until his death in 1938. The division was renamed in his honor in 1940, and in 1972 it was designated as one of the Research Libraries of The New York Public Library, (more)

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THE CARIBBEAN

Library of Congress Country Study: Commonwealth of Caribbean Islands
A detailed online study of the Commonwealth Caribbean. The Commonwealth Caribbean is the term applied to the English- speaking islands in the Caribbean and the mainland nations of Belize (formerly British Honduras) and Guyana (formerly British Guiana) that once constituted the Caribbean portion of the British Empire. This volume examines only the islands of the Commonwealth Caribbean, which are Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands (Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada), Barbados, the Leeward Islands (Antigua and Barbuda, St. Christopher [hereafter, St. Kitts] and Nevis, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and Montserrat), and the Bahamas, Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. (more)

Jamaica
The abolition of slavery in 1834 freed a quarter million slaves on this Caribbean island located south of Cuba. Many of whom became small farmers as Jamaica gradually obtained increasing independence from Britain. In 1958, it joined other British Caribbean colonies in forming the Federation of the West Indies. Jamaica gained full independence when it withdrew from the Federation in 1962. Today, the island is home to ver 2.7 million people, 91.2% of African ancestry.
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The Bahamas

Since attaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1973, the Bahamas have prospered through tourism and international banking and investment management. The Caribbean chain of islands, located in the North Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Florida, northeast of Cuba, have a cumulative population of over 300,000, (85% of African ancestry).

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Haiti

After a prolonged struggle, Haiti became the first black republic to declare its independence in 1804. Located in the Caribbean, western one-third of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, west of the Dominican Republic. Haiti is now home to over 8.7 million people, 95% of African ancestry.

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Notable Caribbean Descendant: W.E.B. Du Bois

William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois (February 23, 1868 - August 27, 1963) was a civil rights activist, sociologist, historian, author, and scholar. The son of Alfred Du Bois of Haiti, Dubois became a naturalized citizen of Ghana in 1963 at the age of 95. Examine W.E.B. Dubois' obituary published by the New York Times on August 28, 1963.

New Jersey African American History Resources

New Jersey Digital Legal Library Collection: Laws of Slavery in New Jersey
This collection includes texts, or links to texts at other sites, for all the published New Jersey statutes and court decisions regarding slavery.

Historic New Jersey Churches
Profile of historic black churches in New Jersey on this database and photographic inventory containing more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state of New Jersey.

Morgan's History of the New Jersey Conference AME Church (1887)
Founded by Bishop Richard Allen in Philadelphia, PA in 1816, the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) was the first African-American incorporated denomination in the United States. This historic publication provides a history of the New Jersey Conference AME Church.

West Jersey and South Jersey Heritage
Discussion of slavery, voting and African-American rights in South Jersey

Women's History in New Jersey

An online collection of documents, images and notable facts of African American Women in New Jersey dating back to slavery.

Slavery in the North
Details of the issues and challenges of New Jersey and the other northern states regarding slavery.

PhillyBurbs Underground Railroad

Examines slavery, abolition and the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey

Small Towns, Black Lives
Photographic documentary, art and history project of African American communities of southern New Jersey by photographer Wendel A. White.

Research and Exhibits: Black History and Culture

African American Odyssey, Library of Congress Exhibit
This Special Presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition, showcases the Library's incomparable African-American collections. The presentation provides a glimpse into the Library's vast African-American collections including a wide array of important and rare books, government documents, photographs, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.

Smithsonian Institution's Museum of African American History and Culture

Explores American history, society, and creative expression from an African American perspective.

The African American Mosaic - A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture

The Mosaic covers nearly 500 years of the black experience in the Western hemisphere, including Colonization, Abolition, Migrations, and the WPA. The Mosaic surveys the full range size, and variety of the Library's collections, including books, periodicals, prints, photographs, music, film, and recorded sound.

US Department of State - Gateway to African American History
An exhibition of photographs and personal stories of hard-won victories of influential African Americans who helped shape the life of their nation over the past 150 years.

National Park Service Historical Collections
A collection of tools for learning, historic sites, exhibits, photographs and publication exploring African American Heritage.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Online collections and exhibits of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a national research library devoted to collecting, preserving and providing access to resources documenting the history and experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world.

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School
The Avalon Project is an online resource providing access to primary source materials in the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. Current online documents related to African American History include texts from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.

Amistad Trials (Famous American Trials)

Thorough examination of the Amistad trials with Maps of the Voyages, Newspaper Accounts, Chronology, Biographical Sketches of Trial Participants, Sketches of the Amistad, the Trial Record, Supreme Court Records and Decisions, Letters and Diary Entries, Images, links and more.

Brown vs. Board of Education
This digital archive contains documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present. The archive is divided into four main areas of interest: Supreme Court cases; busing and school integration efforts in northern urban areas; school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District; and recent trends in American schools.

Harlem Renaissance - Multimedia Resource
This interactive website explores the impact of the African American cultural and intellectual revolution during the 1920s and 1930s. Centered in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem, the movement impacted urban centers throughout the United States across the cultural spectrum including: literature, drama, music, visual art, dance.

Voices of Civil Rights: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories

The product of a partnership between AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the Library of Congress, this website is a collection of personal accounts of America's struggle to fulfill the promise of equality for all. The site serves as both a living memorial to those who were a part of the civil rights experience and a tribute to the quest for equality that continues today.

Beyond Face Value: Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency
This electronic exhibit offers a interesting perspective on the Civil War era South, by examining

the depictions of slaves on Confederate currency. The notes also include vignettes featuring modes of transportation, mythical characters and historical figures of the American Revolution. These images were created by those who institutionalized and worked to preserve slavery, thus, not necessarily portraying the slaves as they viewed themselves and their condition.

The Dred Scott Case (Collection)

This online collection includes 85 documents of the historic Dred Scott case in which Mr. Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court in 1846. This suit began an eleven-year legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a landmark decision declaring that Scott remain a slave. This decision contributed to rising tensions between the free and slave states just before the American Civil War.