13. Trolley Tour of Green-Wood Cemetery and Weeksville Heritage Site

In 1838, a free black man by the name of James Weeks made his first purchase of land in Brooklyn. Today, Weeksville Heritage Center is Brooklyn’s largest African-American cultural institution and multidisciplinary museum dedicated to preserving the history of the 19th century African-American community of Weeksville. The Green-Wood Cemetery was also established in 1838, and is the home to the remains of many prominent African-Americans, who made their mark on the city’s past.

Green-Wood and Weeksville Heritage Center will celebrate Black History Month together, recognizing a shared history, on Saturday, February 25th. Green-Wood’s trolley will begin a tour of where many prominent Black New Yorkers and abolitionists are laid to rest, including Margaret Pine, the last woman to have lived as a slave in New York, Susan Smith McKinney Steward, whose family owned land in Weeksville, and who became the first black female doctor in the state, and the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, among many others. The trolley will then head to Weeksville in Crown Heights to see the new permanent exhibition, “Weeksville, Transforming Community/In Pursuit of Freedom and the 19th century Hunterfly Road Houses.”  The ADA accessible tour will begin and end at Green-Wood, and includes a box lunch.

Green-Wood Cemetery is located at 500 25th Street in Brooklyn.