(Sold Out) Black in 19th-Century Brooklyn

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In 1838, just eleven years after New York State abolished slavery, a free black man named James Weeks made his first purchase of land in Brooklyn. Weeksville, named after Weeks, would become one of America’s largest free Black communities prior to the Civil War. In the same year, Green-Wood Cemetery was established. What do they have in common? Both honor the lives of African Americans who lived in Brooklyn and who made their mark on the city’s past and future. Nearly two hundred years later, Green-Wood and Weeksville Heritage Center join together to celebrate and recognize their shared history by welcoming you to a very special Saturday afternoon.

Aboard Green-Wood’s trolley, you’ll begin your tour with a survey of the many prominent Black New Yorkers and abolitionists laid to rest here, including Margaret Pine (1778-1857), the last woman to have lived as a slave in New York, Susan Smith McKinney Steward (1847-1918), whose family owned land in Weeksville and who became first black female doctor in the state, and the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1959-1988), among many others. Then we head to Weeksville in Crown Heights, now Brooklyn’s largest African-American cultural institution, to see the new permanent exhibition Weeksville, Transforming Community/In Pursuit of Freedom and the 19th-century Hunterfly Road houses. This trolley tour begins and ends at Green-Wood. A box lunch will be provided, and we’ll dine in the new and beautiful main room of the Weeksville Heritage Center. Please email events@green-wood.com with any food allergies.

$35 for members of Green-Wood and BHS/$40 for non-members.

Green-Wood trolley tours are fully accessible and ADA compliant. In order to accommodate a wheelchair or other mobility device on the trolley, advance arrangements must be made. Please call (718) 210-3080, ext. 1. Please note that portions of the tour take place outside the trolley and may require exiting the vehicle on multiple occasions. Please contact the Historic Fund for more information.

Trolley tours are run rain or shine, with the exception of dangerous conditions as determined by Green-Wood. Click here for our inclement weather policy.