Press

A lecture on October 29th will kick off the opening of a new exhibition at the New York State Museum on Albany's Rapp Road African-American community, a continuously occupied settlement in the Pine Bush first established in the 1930s and now a designated state and national historic district.

Emma Dickson, a second generation Rapp Road resident, and Jennifer Lemak, State Museum research fellow and community historian, will present "From Mississippi to the Promised Land - Exploring Albany's Rapp Road Community" as part of the October Museum Series Wednesday, Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Museum Theater.

Following the lecture, Lemak will lead a tour of the newly opened exhibition she curated --
Bound for the Promised Land: Albany's Rapp Road Communty.

Located between Washington Avenue Extension and Western Avenue, the Rapp Road community was established in the 1930s and is still inhabited by 18 of the original 23 families. It began during the Great Migration, a period between 1910 and 1940 when hundreds of thousands of southern African-Americans left the South for the North in search of a more prosperous life, freer of racial prejudice.

Rev. Louis W. Parson, an African-American preacher from Shubuta, Mississippi, and his wife, Frances were among those who came North looking for a new home. When the Parsons encountered a group of deeply devoted women in Albany holding prayer groups they stayed and established a church in the South End, the First Church of God and Christ. Believing strongly in his new church and in helping his fellow man, Rev. Parson began shuttling back and forth between Shubuta and Albany, transporting African- Americans in his seven-passenger Buick. The trips were dangerous because most of the migrants were poor sharecroppers, but the preacher persevered, despite warrants for his arrest.

In the early 1930s, the Parsons and another church member purchased rural land in Albany's pine barren so that their deeply religious congregation could move from the urban South End - then the home of bars, prostitution and gambling -- to establish a more suitable, self-sustaining agrarian way of life.

In September 2002, the Rapp Road community was designated a New York State Historic District and, four months later, was also designated as a New York State Historic District.

"For too long the African American experience has not been properly studied," said Lemak. "The Rapp Road community is just one of many neighborhoods that make up the fabric of our greater community. Studying it only makes understanding our local history a richer experience."

Lemak has been researching the settlement for three years as part of her doctoral dissertation, and plans to publish her work in book form next year. She interviewed residents here and in Shubuta, traveling there in November 2002, along with Dickson and her sister, Girley Ferguson, to find out what life was like for those who did and didn't come to Albany.

Photos and objects in the exhibition provide insight into the history and everyday life of the Rapp Road community. Included is a prayer book used in prayer groups organized by women in each other's homes, quilt squares made in Shubuta for the quilting groups who socialized while they worked and a 100-pound flour sack that was bleached so that it could be used as clothing by the resourceful residents whose families had been poor sharecroppers.

The exhibition will be open through February 29th outside the Crossroads Gallery, the location of the Dreaming of Timbuctoo exhibition about another African-American settlement in New York State.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.