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WEEKSVILLE    BANKS

to the study of Black history. An archeological research project under the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities, this Project is the only one of the twenty digs currently underway in New York State being conducted in a Black community. Located on the site of a projected Model Cities housing complex in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the dig has yielded an extensive collection of artifacts since its inception in 1968. The artifacts will be displayed in a museum that consists of four houses still standing on a surviving section of a colonial road that was the eastern boundary of Weeksville. Through the efforts of the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History, the community arm of the Project, the four houses have recently been designated as landmarks by New York. 

But perhaps the most valuable contribution this Project will make is the role it can play in the development of a politico-historical model of a Black community struggling for self-determination. The recent emphasis on our history and the unveiling of the roles of Black men and women who built this nation are the impetus for a resurgence of Black awareness and pride. But Black individual histories have a negligible impact on a political level. In order to politicize our history we must deal with our collective efforts to make meaningful change. A politico-historical model is therefore a dynamic concept that can be both a measure of and a means to change. Weeksville, a nineteenth century microcosm in Black, can be used as an analytic tool that will allow us to 1) isolate those factors critical to the community's efforts to effect needed change; 2) measure the impact of these factors on the turn of events and 3) point the way to change in the future. By exploring Weeksville we are exploring the possibilities for change for the entire Black community.

"terra incognitas"
Life in nineteenth century New York was full of contradictions for its free, Black citizens. By a gradual process full emancipation was granted in 1827 but its benefits were few. The right to vote, for example, was extended only to those whose personal property exceeded $250.00 in value.1 Although there was little economic competition most Blacks found themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder and with the mid-century influx of Irish even this foothold was lost. By contrast Black New Yorkers were at the vanguard of Black political agitation against slavery and established its first voice,

1 McPherson, James M., The Negro's Civil War, New York, 1965, p. 3.

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