Tenement Museum: After The Riots: New York's Black Community Responds And Rebuilds

Press release from Tenement Museum:

2021-07-28

“No Paper Last Week

It is hardly necessary to say that we issued no paper last week. Our life would have been endangered had we attempted to approach our office. We are compelled to omit much interesting matter for the want of room and to give that which was set up for last week’s paper; but we will endeavor to make amends in our next issue.”2

Albro Lyons, one of the men on that list, was a prominent Black merchant who ran a ship outfitting business and boarding house for Black sailors. A mob looted and severely damaged his family’s home in the riots, and Lyons submitted for reparations.

Black churches proved vital in the relief and recovery efforts that followed. Shiloh Presbyterian Church, located a mere ten blocks from the current site of the Tenement Museum, had been led by Reverend Henry Highland Garnet since 1857. Garnet was born into slavery in Maryland before escaping to New York with his family in 1824, where he rose to prominence as one of the leading voices in the national anti-slavery movement. His speeches and writing appeared frequently in the pages of the Anglo-African.

“If in your temporary labors of Christian philanthropy, you have been induced to look forward to our future destiny in this our native land, and to ask what is the best thing we can do for the colored people? This is our answer. Protect us in our endeavors to obtain an honest living. Suffer no one to hinder us in any department of well directed industry, give us a fair and open field and lets us work out our own destiny, and we ask no more…” 6

“…for more than a year the riot spirit had been culminating before it burst forth. The police authorities were frequently applied to, by respectable colored persons without being able to obtain and redress when assaulted and abused in the streets. We have sometimes pointed to the aggressors but no arrests have been made.”8

This press release was produced by Tenement Museum. The views expressed here are the author’s own.