About this listing
Houses belonging to 19th century free-black community
Place Details
Borough : Brooklyn
Neighborhood : Weeksville
Place Matters Profile
In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, right across the street from the Kingsborough Projects, stand four small wood-frame houses that are the last traces of Weeksville, a nineteenth-century African-American community. The community was named after James Weeks, an African-American from Virginia who bought the plot of land in 1838. Although he had no education, he played a key role in developing this thriving settlement of free blacks, whose community building and social and cultural achievements have been rediscovered by the Weeksville Heritage Center and are commemorated here.
In 1968, the dilapidated little group had been scheduled for demolition, to make way for more housing projects. Just in time, a historian/engineer team on the trail of local black history flew over the area and spotted the four houses on an oddly situated curving lane that bore no relation to the modern grid system. The lane turned out to be a remnant of an even older colonial path called Hunterfly Road, which formed the eastern
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In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, right across the street from the Kingsborough Projects, stand four small wood-frame houses that are the last traces of Weeksville, a nineteenth-century African-American community. The community was named after James Weeks, an African-American from Virginia who bought the plot of land in 1838. Although he had no education, he played a key role in developing this thriving settlement of free blacks, whose community building and social and cultural achievements have been rediscovered by the Weeksville Heritage Center and are commemorated here.
In 1968, the dilapidated little group had been scheduled for demolition, to make way for more housing projects. Just in time, a historian/engineer team on the trail of local black history flew over the area and spotted the four houses on an oddly situated curving lane that bore no relation to the modern grid system. The lane turned out to be a remnant of an even older colonial path called Hunterfly Road, which formed the eastern boundary of Weeksville. This astonishing aerial sighting was an important step in a longer, larger community process of uncovering a history that the history books had ignored. The Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History (now the Weeksville Heritage Center) became the vehicle.
Enter Joan Maynard, the society’s executive director. She dreamed of a black history museum that would provide “cultural vaccination” for children who needed to be reminded of their heritage and value to the future. It took Maynard and her colleagues decades of persistent struggle, but they managed to buy, repair and preserve the houses, conduct archival and archaeological research, gain landmark designation from the city and state of New York and establish exhibits and public programs that became the foundation of the society’s reputation.
Today, the Historic Hunterfly Road Houses are restored, open, and a hub of activity. The schedule includes school programs, tours, exhibits, storytelling and cultural programs, and community festivals. According to Maynard, who died in 2006, it’s an essential place. “We need children of all backgrounds to visit Weeksville. The world has become too small a place to seriously consider selective survival as a realistic alternative, a place where the children of the powerful and wealthy will survive as the children of the poor and powerless perish. Remember, there’s some little child here someplace who will change the world. I’m just convinced of it...All of our children cannot sing, dance, or play basketball, but they all have history, the richest source of hopes and dreams.”
