(1930) is a history of African American people in New York City, primarily in Harlem, from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth. Written by James Weldon Johnson while he held a Rosenwald fellowship during a lengthy sabbatical from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1929 and 1930, the book was the culmination of a plan Johnson had begun to work on as early as 1925, when he published an article on the subject.
Black Manhattan begins with the founding of New Amsterdam by the Dutch in 1626 when there were only eleven African Americans, all men, in the town. By the time slavery was abolished in the American state of New York in 1827, the black population had grown considerably. The 1830 census recorded over 14,000 free African
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Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "Black Manhattan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 October 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6340, accessed 24 November 2024.]
