This is a virtual program.

In August 1846, the land-rich abolitionist Gerrit Smith unveiled his plan to parcel out 120,000 Adirondack acres to three thousand Black New Yorkers. His goal: to help his “grantees” gain the voting rights they had been denied since 1821 unless they could prove ownership of real property. From the distribution of his gift land to poor Black men from all over New York, to the on-the-ground experience of Black Adirondack pioneers in the second half of the 19th century and the afterlife of Smith’s “scheme of justice and benevolence” in Adirondack and Black memory, The Black Woods introduces a provocative and stirring chapter to New York’s rich history of racial justice.

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