Millerton library, NECC and Historical Society mark Black History Month

MILLERTON — February, officially known as Black History Month, “is an opportunity to review the histories we share, to ensure they are inclusive and to highlight individuals and events that may not otherwise be heard,” according to Executive Director of the Dutchess County Historical Society (DCHS) Bill Jeffway, also a founding member of Celebrating the Africa Spirit.   

The annual celebration has its roots with the 1915 founding of the Association of the Study of Negro Life and History that sponsored Negro History week in 1926. As civil rights issues became prominent, the event was observed in  locations across the country, and was formalized by President Gerald Ford in 1976.

“While Black history is part of our entire, collective human, national and local history, and today there is more emphasis on telling an inclusive history 12 months a year, there has been a historic under representation of this community’s stories and people,” said Jeffway in an interview with this newspaper in honor of Black History Month.

In order to address that information void and racial divide, which came into sharp focus this summer, the NorthEast-Millerton Library in cooperation with the North East Community Center (NECC) didn’t wait for February, but instead immediately began a bi-weekly discussion of books that centered on the topic following the numerous Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of the George Floyd killing on May 25, 2020.

According to Head Librarian Rhiannon Leo-Jameson, the  readers are now on their fifth book, “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies,” by Resmaa Menakem.

Leo-Jameson said the book discusses the way in which traumatic events — be they physical or not — can actually alter DNA and have a negative impact on groups throughout the years. Specifically, slavery, the Jim Crow Era and other injustices are now being identified as causes behind heart disease and other ailments that impact the Black community.

Beyond individual impact, Leo-Jameson said the author suggests racial trauma effects the lives of all Americans. She said the author puts forward the theory that “it affects whole communities and needs to be recognized and rooted out.” 

Foremost in that history of trauma is slavery, which, according the DCHS website, began when slaves were first brought to New Amsterdam and New Netherland in the 1600s. Shortly before the American Revolution, the presence of a large number of Quakers in New York’s Harlem Valley, who were forbidden by their religion from owning slaves, had begun to suppress the practice in this area.  

Slavery was legally phased out in the state of New York as of July 4, 1827, by the “Gradual Abolition Act” of 1799 before ending “nationally” with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. 

More on slavery as well as other elements of Black history are included in the county Historical Society’s extensive collection at www.dchsny.org/black-history. Featured are documents, photos and facts including  yearbooks  presenting  topics such as:  “Separate Black Education in Dutchess County,” “Ante-Bellum Dutchess County’s Struggle Against Slavery,” “Dutchess County Quakers and Slavery,” “The Anti-Slavery Movement in Dutchess County, 1835-1850” and “The Negro in Dutchess County in the Eighteenth Century.” 

For Menakem’s book or others on Black History, or to join the library’s next meeting at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 24, call 518-789-3340 or go to www.nemillertonlibrary.org.