In 1846 and 1847, three thousand Black New Yorkers were gifted with 120,000 acres of Adirondack land by Gerrit Smith, an upstate abolitionist and heir to an immense land fortune. On their new land they could hope to meet the $250 property requirement New York imposed on Black prospective voters in 1821, and gain a cherished right of citizenship, the ballot. Smith’s suffrage-minded plan was endorsed by Frederick Douglass and New York’s leading Black abolitionists.

In “The Black Woods: Pursuing Racial Justice on the Adirondack Frontier” (Cornell, November 2023), writer and independent scholar Amy Godine retrieves the robust story of Black pioneers who carved from the wilderness a future for their families and their civic rights, and returns these trailblazers and their descendants to their rightful place in the Adirondack narrative.

This presentation is approved for 1.0 hours of CFE credit by the Society of American Foresters!

Day and time: March 12, 1 p.m. (Eastern)

To register, visit https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OVHs_nuPT4aE6TbN05E1OQ#/registration.