AAHS hosted The Underestimated: Hillburn’s Brook School and the Fight Against Segregation, an evening revisiting the 1943 desegregation fight in Hillburn—when Black families, supported by the NAACP, challenged unequal schools and helped lay groundwork for the broader civil rights movement.
AAHS hosted a meaningful community gathering at the historic Brook Presbyterian Church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This event continued a relationship that began in 2007, when AAHS first started meeting with Hillburn community members in the church and in their homes.
A Milestone in Preserving Local Civil Rights History During October, the African American Historical Society of Rockland County launched the Historic Hillburn website, a new digital platform dedicated to preserving the powerful civil rights legacy of Hillburn, New York. This groundbreaking site highlights the pivotal 1943 Hillburn school desegregation...
Honoring the Legacy of Piermont’s Mine Hole Community: A Dedication to African American History On Saturday, September 29, 2024, the African American Historical Society of Rockland County (AAHS) joined community members and local historians to unveil a historical marker dedicated to the Mine Hole in Piermont, New York. This...
Settlement of the area that would later be known as Orange County and afterwards Rockland County by Europeans and individuals of African descent in the 1680’s. Pioneers from Manhattan and New Jersey settled on a large area of land that lay within the borders of New York and New...
Original Signer of the Tappan Patent Jan (John) de Vries II was baptized on August 25, 1647, at the Dutch Reformed Church. He was the son of a Dutch army captain named Johan de Fries and a black woman named Swartinne. The name Swartinne is derived from the...
Original Signer of the Tappan Patent Claes (Nicholas) Manuel one of the African American signers of the Tappan Patent, was born mid seventeenth century and was baptized on August 22, 1649, in New Amsterdam (New York). Claes was a free Black man. Though it is likely that his parents...
William Henry Myers was born in Virginia, August 17, 1848 and was enslaved on a cotton plantation. In 1860, at the age of twelve, he was sold to a Louisiana cotton farmer. He would work there for three years. At the age of fifteen Myers escaped from that plantation. Word...
Edward Hesdra is hailed for operating an Underground Railroad safe house in Nyack, NY. The UGRR was a secret operation since the penalties for assisting fugitive slaves were severe for the slave as well as the abolitionist. Few records exist that tell us about the activities of agents, conductors...
Ethel Roseboro hailed from North Carolina. She moved to Hillburn in order to teach the third and fourth grades.
Cicely Savery Gunner was the daughter of William Savery, a former slave and master carpenter whose desire to educate his children after the civil war led to the building of the first school for African Americans in Talladega County, Alabama. This school later became Talladega College. Today, visitors to...