John Jay saw racism and slavery as grave moral wrongs. He served as president of the New York Manumission Society, and later, as governor of New York State, signed into law an act for the gradual abolition of slavery. "
I wish to see all unjust and all unnecessary discriminations everywhere abolished, and that the time may soon come when all our inhabitants of every color and denomination shall be free and equal partakers of our political liberty
," he wrote in 1785.
And yet
—
contradictorily, and like America itself
—
Jay also sometimes fell short of his highest ideals. Even as he worked to free black Americans, Jay and his family enslaved several men and women. Through research, we have come to know some of their names:
Mary, Clarinda, Plato, Peet.
We continue to search for their imprints and find ways to share their compelling narratives with students and the public.
F
or thirty years, the Jay Heritage Center has made civil rights and social justice programming an integral part of its mission. At one early symposium at our site,
Dr. Gretchen Sorin
, author of "
Driving While Black,
" observed that historic sites like JHC can help link the struggles of the framers to our own era's battles over civil rights. Today
—
as our nation struggles to reacquaint itself with its better angels
—
we take that commitment more seriously than ever and stand, as always, against racism of all kinds.
In that spirit, please join us this summer for a series of upcoming conversations about race and social justice at this fraught moment in American history.
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SAVING AFRICAN AMERICAN
HISTORIC PLACES WITH
BRENT LEGGS
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Tuesday, July 14, 6:00 p.m.
For more than a decade,
Brent Leggs
has been working tirelessly to preserve important African American cultural landmarks. Leggs, the executive director of the
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
at the
National Trust for Historic Preservation
, was featured earlier this year in a lengthy profile in the
New Yorker
. "
One site at a time
," writes the magazine's Casey Cep, "
Leggs and his colleagues are changing not only what history we preserve but what we think it means to preserve it
."
Join him on
Tuesday, July 14, at 6:00 p.m.
, for a virtual discussion about saving these too-often-overlooked historic sites.
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PULITZER FINALIST
GEORGE PACKER
ON REPAIRING OUR FRAYED
SOCIAL
CONTRACT
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Wednesday, June 17, 7:30 p.m.
Join him on
Wednesday, June 17, at 7:30 p.m.,
at our
virtual book talk,
to discuss
an America in crisis at home and abroad. For further reading, see
Packer's latest piece
in the
Atlantic
, "Shouting Into the Institutional Void."
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Jay Heritage Center
at the
Jay Estate
A National Historic Landmark
210 Boston Post Road
Rye, NY 10580
(914) 698-9275
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