{"id":317063,"date":"2026-08-09T04:10:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T04:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/317063\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T04:10:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T04:10:33","slug":"wall-of-ghosts-memorializes-forgotten-free-black-community-in-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/317063\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Wall of Ghosts’ Memorializes Forgotten Free Black Community in Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The\"The<\/a>In the early nineteenth century, resilient free Black community lived in Newtown, the rural village that would later become Elmhurst, Queens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Census records, historical maps, manumission documents, 19th century newspaper articles, and correspondences show that Black families lived, worked, and raised children here decades before the Civil War<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet today, almost no visible trace of that community remains.\u00a0In a direct response to the physical and historical erasure of one of New York City\u2019s most significant early free Black settlements, Scientific Inquirer<\/a> has announced the launch of the Wall of Ghosts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The digital memorial is a central component of the Ghosts of Newtown project\u2014a partnership between Scientific Inquirer<\/a> editor Marc Landas and Jack Jaramillo and Gregory J. Cassagnol \u2014 dedicated to restoring the history of abolitionist<\/a> Queens \u201cto its rightful place in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

While other historic sites like Weeksville in Brooklyn<\/a>, Seneca Village in Manhattan<\/a> or Sandy Ground on Staten Island<\/a> are celebrated, Newtown\u2019s story has remained largely absent from the public landscape.<\/p>\n

At it\u2019s peak in the 1850s, the size of its free Black population rivaled Weeksville\u2019s. The farms, houses, and roads where these families once lived have been paved over by urban development. Their stories survive mostly in archival records \u2014 census pages, property documents, and scattered historical references.<\/p>\n

\"Loo\"Loo<\/a>These records reveal a network of Black American<\/a> families who navigated a society that often limited their rights, including property requirements that restricted Black voting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite their contributions to Queens\u2019 early history, no monument, marker, or public memorial acknowledges their presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor too long, the history of Newtown (modern-day Elmhurst) has been allowed to fade as the neighborhood underwent rapid demographic transformations,\u201d an announcement of the project said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis erasure reached a tragic peak in the spring of 2026 when concrete was poured over the Elmhurst African Burial Ground by 90 Queens Inc.\u2014a site where experts estimate the remains of up to 290 individuals lie, many of whom were enslaved people whose labor built western Queens,\u201d organizers said. \u201cThe Wall of Ghosts serves as a defiant countermeasure to this silence, reclaiming the names of 161 documented individuals found in records spanning from 1755 to 1829.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wall of Ghosts pairs real names \u2014 such as Eve, Cesar, and Garrett Remsen \u2014 with imagined portraits to give a visual identity to a community that produced figures of international renown. Among those who called this community home were:<\/p>\n

James W.C. Pennington (ca. 1807-1870)<\/a>: A teacher at the Newtown schoolhouse on Dutch Lane (now Corona Avenue) who escaped slavery to become the first Black student to attend Yale and a world-renowned abolitionist leader.Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817-ca. 1866)<\/a>: A fugitive-turned-preacher and radical orator who occupied the same Newtown pulpit before reshaping transatlantic history.John Bunyan Reeve (1831-1916)<\/a>: A former Newtown schoolteacher and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of James W.C. Pennington, Reeve went on to organize the theology department at Howard University, carrying Newtown\u2019s legacy of faith and learning onto the national stage.<\/p>\n

You can explore the Wall of Ghosts here<\/a>, and sign a Change.Org petition<\/a> for a permanent physical monument.<\/p>\n

Read more about Black History in New York State.<\/a><\/p>\n

Illustrations, from above: Wall of Ghosts promotional image; and an imagined portrait of Loo, a Newtown, Queens freedom seeker,\u00a0 from Wall of Ghosts (created by AI using original escape notice.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the early nineteenth century, resilient free Black community lived in Newtown, the rural village that would later…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-317063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}