NEW YORK.- The New-York Historical Society is embarking on a two-year initiative on slavery and New York. The first phase of the exhibition, tentatively titled "Slavery and the Making of New York" is slated to open on October 7, 2005. Through two major exhibitions, public programs, walking tours, educational materials and programs for school, college, and adult learners, N-YHS will explore the vital role that slave trading, the labor of enslaved people, and important commerce with slave societies in the 19th century played in making New York the wealthiest city in the world. The N-YHS is working collaboratively with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Library in developing these exhibitions, and in planning related educational and public programs.

The story of New York's rootedness in the enslavement of Africans is largely unknown to the general public. For the last 30 years, scholars here and abroad have recovered many fascinating details of the hidden worlds of New York's enslaved people. Among the richest sources for that new scholarship have been the library and museum collections of the New-York Historical Society. Other important materials reside in the New York State Library in Albany, the New York Public Library (especially at the Schomburg Center), the Municipal Archives, and the Gilder Lehrman Collection, now on deposit at N-YHS. In addition, the archaeological investigations that followed the re-discovery of the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan have given scholars a new window into the lives of the thousands of black New Yorkers who found their final peace in this place.

The time has now come to bring this story to a broader public understanding. The Slavery and New York initiative will transform every New Yorker's understanding of this city, past and present. After the next two years, everyone will wonder why this story had never been told before.

The New-York Historical Society exhibit will employ all the technical and artistic talent needed to make this a compelling and dramatic story. School groups will be guided through the exhibit on pathways that connect directly to pre- and post-visit classroom lessons. Public programs will carry the historical narrative forward into the lives of our city today. No one who participates will leave unmoved by this encounter of a great city with this grim chord in its history.