Tracing History, Memory and Family Reflecting on Juneteenth and America 250 Thursday, June 25, 2026 | 6:30 PMNyack Library, Community Room59 South BroadwayNyack, New York 10960 Join the African American Historical Society of Rockland County for an evening exploring Black life in the Hudson Valley through history, memory, and...
The African American Historical Society of Rockland County hosted its Annual Event with a virtual conversation featuring Dr. Prithi Kanakamedala, author of Brooklynites: The Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough.
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...
By Jamila Brathwaite The St. Charles African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church today stands on Valentine Road in Sparkill, New York. In 1897, the church was rebuilt in its present location; however, in the mid-1800s, free blacks and former slaves built the original church near the Rockland County line in...
By Dr. Travis Jackson The discovery of the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan in 1991 stimulated an interest in slavery, as it had existed in New York City during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Until that time, the city’s deep association with slavery was not widely known; most...
By Jamila Brathwaite During World War II, Rockland County became home to the largest U.S. Army embarkation camp in the United States. Camp Shanks was located “in and around Orangeburg in the Town of Orangetown, New York.” The installation was named for Major General David Cary Shanks (1861–1940) who...