New York State’s parks agency is marking the lead-up to the bicentennial of slavery’s abolition in the state with a multiyear initiative to document early Black history, the agency said. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation announced on February 6 that it had launched Enslavement to Freedom: 1627-1827-2027, a program built around the span between the first documented enslaved Africans in early New York around 1627, the 1827 abolition of slavery in New York State, and the bicentennial of that emancipation in 2027.
As part of the rollout, the office said it was inviting educational and nonprofit organizations across the state to host one or more of four traveling banner exhibitions focused on Black history in early New York. The agency also said its interpretive staff and environmental educators would host educational events and programs at state parks and historic sites throughout New York during February, timed to Black History Month.
The office said exhibitions tied to the initiative would be displayed on the Empire State Plaza Concourse in Albany, and it credited the program to staff including Kathy Moser and Lavada Nahon. According to the agency, the initiative was developed in coordination with a roster of state and private partners, among them the Office of General Services, the New York State Museum, the New York State Library, the New York State Archives, the Archives Partnership Trust, the Schenectady County Historical Society and Historic Hudson Valley.
The agency pointed organizations and the public to its ConsidertheSourceNY.org resource for related educational materials. The office said the banner exhibitions remained available for host institutions to request, framing the traveling displays and the February programming as the first public-facing pieces of a project it plans to carry through the 2027 emancipation bicentennial.
