10. The movement to Create a Memorial Started During Occupy Wall Street

In 2012, during the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement, protestors signed the first online petition to recognize the city’s deep involvement in slavery. The petition reads:

December 13th is the 300th anniversary of the law establishing the first slave market in New York. That market was located at the end of Wall Street where present day Water Street is. Yet there is not a single sign, plaque, marker, statue, memorial, or monument with any reference to slavery or the slave trade in Lower Manhattan…

…[Slaves’]  contribution to New York is and has been completely invisible. After 300 years it is finally time to tell their story.

Next, read about 10 stops of the Underground Railroad in NYC and about Lower Manhattan’s secret history of slips. For more information about New York history of slavery, check out Slavery in New York and Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery.