The nonprofit is expanding its advocacy for Timbuctoo, a historic abolitionist farming community that helped Black New Yorkers gain voting rights in the 1840s.
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. —
The John Brown Lives! organization is celebrating the 180th anniversary of Timbuctoo, a historic free Black agricultural community near Lake Placid.
Free Black New Yorkers and abolitionists established Timbuctoo in 1846 to enable Black New Yorkers to both own land and qualify to vote. At the time, New York State law required Black voters to own $250 in property to be eligible to cast a ballot.
Oct. 16 also marks the anniversary of prominent abolitionist John Brown’s unsuccessful slave revolt of 1859 in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. In 1849, John Brown moved his family to North Elba, NY, near Timbuctoo, to help free Black New Yorkers build new and prosperous lives in the Adirondacks.
Now, the John Brown Lives! nonprofit, which says its goals are to both honor the legacy of John Brown and promote social justice and human rights through education and activism in the Adirondacks, is setting a new vision for its future.
John Brown Lives! announced that it received a $50,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. The organization says the money will be used to support Better Tell Timbuctoo, a project that intends to bring Timbuctoo’s history to secondary students and educators across New York and the nation. According to the nonprofit, the project will create an interactive documentary and a digital educator toolkit, revitalize current Timbuctoo exhibits, and support on-site visits to the John Brown Farm.
The organization also has a vision for a Timbuctoo Center for History and Human Rights. The center would seek to bring together scholars, artists, educators, students, community members, civic leaders, and the public to explore the history of Timbuctoo and to create a resource for civic engagement and collective action.
“We are not simply looking back at 180 years of history,” says Dr. Tanya Jones, Timbuctoo descendant, sociologist, and John Brown Lives! Board Member. “We are asking what this history makes possible now—and what we can build together for the next 180 years and beyond.”
For more information on the John Brown Lives! organization and its goals, check out its website here.