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- History tutoring in the streets of New York: Elsa Waithe from the “Slavers of New York” initiative in action. (Miriam Braun)
New York is full of street names that go back to slave owners and slave traders. But many do not know that. An initiative wants to change that and has come up with a simple and effective method for this.
Corner of Wyckoff Avenue and Jefferson Street in Brooklyn. Two streets named after two former slave owners: Jefferson, the third US president and the once influential New York Wyckloff family. Ada Reso and Elsa Waithe – initiators of the small group “Slavers of New York” – want to create awareness for this story.
“We are now going down Wyckoff Ave and sticking our new stickers there that say:” The Wyckoff family, they were slave owners, “says Elsa Waithe.
Research in census records and archives
They get their knowledge about this from old archives or census records in which families also had to list their slaves. “We found newspaper advertisements where, for example, people offered their slaves for sale or the Wyckoffs put up want ads when slaves had run away,” says Ada Reso.
“We want to tell the story correctly,” say Ada Reso (left) and Elsa Waithe. (Miriam Braun)The activists have identified more than 500 different locations with around 200 names of former slave owners. Typically wealthy landowners, whose ownership later led to the creation of roads. And they were named after them.
“We want to tell the story correctly”
They do not pursue the goal of changing the names. “We want to tell the story correctly,” says Elsa Waithe. “The narrative is that New York and all of the north were the good guys in the slave days. But New York has been a center of the slave trade for the longest time. Wall Street was built by slaves.”
They met with open ears with their action. The expected future New York Mayor Eric Adams is African American. And he has already said: He could imagine changing street names like that in New York. However, the two of them are of the opinion: a name alone does not change anything. This is cosmetics. Much more important is the honest discussion. And to get them going, they stick on properly.
(abridged online text version)
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