Stuff You Missed in History Class

Seneca Village was a predominantly black community that built itself from the ground up. But its story is fragmented. Even though it existed at a time when it could have been fairly well-documented, there was a vested interest in erasing it.

Holly's Research:

• “Seneca Village, New York City.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/seneca-village-new-york-city.htm
• Alexander, Leslie M. “African or American?” University of Illinois Press. 2008.
• Wall, Diana diZerega, et al. “Seneca Village and Little Africa: Two African American Communities in Antebellum New York City.” Historical Archaeology, vol. 42, no. 1, 2008, pp. 97–107. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25617485.
• “Discover Seneca Village: Selected Research Topics and Resources.” Central Park Conservancy. October 2019. https://d17wymyl890hh0.cloudfront.net/new_images/feature_facilities/SenecaVillage_SelectedResearchTopicsandResources_2020_v4.pdf?mtime=20200219091534
• Capron, Maddie and Christina Zdanowicz. “A black community was displaced to build Central Park. Now a monument will honor them.” CNN Oct. 22, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/seneca-village-central-park-monument-trnd/index.html
• “The Sale of Manhattan.” The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands. Library of Congress and the National Library of the Netherlands. http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/awkbhtml/kb-1/kb-1-2-1.html
• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Manhattan.” Encyclopædia Britannica. November 23, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/place/Manhattan-New-York-City
• Connoly, Colleen. “The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland.” Smithsonian. Oct. 5, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-native-new-yorkers-can-never-truly-reclaim-their-homeland-180970472/
• Cleland, Charles and Bruce R. Greene. “Faith in Paper.” University of Michigan Press. 2011.
• Rosenzweig, Roy and Elizabeth Blackmar. “The Park and the People: A History of Central Park.” Cornell University Press. 1992.
• Blakinger, Keri. “A look at Seneca Village, the black town razed for Central Park.” New York Daily News. May 17, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160518101320/https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/seneca-village-black-town-razed-central-park-article-1.2639611
• Martin, Douglas. “A Village Dies, A Park Is Born.” New York Times. Jan. 31, 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/20160320031313/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/31/arts/a-village-dies-a-park-is-born.html?pagewanted=all
• Arenson, Karen W. “A Technological Dig; Scientists Seek Signs of Central Park Past.” New York Times. July 27, 2000. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/27/nyregion/a-technological-dig-scientists-seek-signs-of-central-park-past.html
• Staples, Brent. “The Death of Black Utopia.” New York Times. Nov. 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/28/opinion/seneca-central-park-nyc.html
• Kang, Tricia. “160 Years of Central Park: A Brief History.” Central Park Conservancy. June 1, 2017. https://www.centralparknyc.org/blog/central-park-history
• Wall, Diane diZerega and Nan A. Rothschild. “The Seneca Village Archaeological Excavations, Summer 2011.” The African Diaspora Archaeology Network. September 2011 Newsletter. http://www.diaspora.illinois.edu/news0911/news0911-4.pdf
• Central Park Conservancy. “Discover Seneca Village: Selected Research Topics ad Resources.” October 2019. https://d17wymyl890hh0.cloudfront.net/new_images/feature_facilities/SenecaVillage_SelectedResearchTopicsandResources_2020_v4.pdf?mtime=20200219091534
• Wall, Diane diZerega, et al. “SENECA VILLAGE, A FORGOTTEN COMMUNITY: REPORT ON THE 2011 EXCAVATIONS.” 2018. http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/arch_reports/1828.pdf
• Seneca Village Project. http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/seneca_village/index.html

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We're revisiting a 2013 two-parter. The history lesson kids often get on the Irish Famine could be summed up as "a blight destroyed the potato crops, and a lot of people starved or moved away." Most kids ask, "Why didn't they eat something else?" Good question.

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Tracy and Holly talk about this week's two-parter on COINTELPRO, and how they both think about those initiatives.

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In part two of this topic, the show looks at some of the specifics of the COINTELPROs that targeted black liberation organizations and the New Left, as well as how these programs were finally exposed to the public. 

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FBI surveillance of people associated with the civil rights movement has come up on the show many times. Today, we’re going to talk about the history of the FBI, especially as it related to communism and “subversive threats,” and how that fed directly into COINTELPRO.

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This 2017 episode covered the Scopes Trial, aka the Monkey Trial, that played out in Dayton, Tennessee in the summer of 1925. It all stemmed from a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution.

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Tracy shares how she landed at the topic of Ignatius Sancho, and she and Holly discuss his writing style. Free Frank's unique story, and how it involves some contradictory situations, is also discussed.

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Free Frank McWorter was the first black man in the U.S. to design a town and establish a multi-racial community. He did this despite having been born into slavery.

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Ignatius Sancho was the first black Briton known to vote in a parliamentary election – that happened in 1774. He became something of a celebrity in 18th-century London.

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This episode travels back to a 2018 episode. Perceptions and interpretations of Phillis Wheatley's life and work have shifted since the 18th century.

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