In 1838, only eleven years after slavery ended in New York State, free African American James Weeks purchased a modest plot of land in what is now Central Brooklyn. Weeks’ land became Weeksville, a thriving, self-sufficient haven for Black people fleeing racial violence, and the second-largest known independent African American community in pre-Civil War America. As an intentional project of Black land ownership, Weeksville enabled its community members to vote at a time when land-owning requirements kept many Black Americans disenfranchised.

By the 1860s, Weeksville was home to nearly 500 families, who had founded schools, churches, an orphanage, and a variety of Black-owned businesses, including one of the country’s first African American newspapers, the Freedman’s Torchlight. The community was a model of African American entrepreneurial success, political freedom and intellectual creativity. Its residents participated in every major national effort against slavery and for equal rights for free people of color, including the Black Convention movement, voting rights campaigns, the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, Freedmen’s schools and African nationalism.

For the past 50 years, WHC has served as an education space and Black community hub. Through the ongoing stewardship of the three surviving historic Hunterfly Road Houses, currently open to the public for tours, WHC inspires visitors and offers tactile connections to African-American history.

Family Programming: The Weeksville Harvest Festival is a family-friendly event that will take place from 12-5pm on Saturday. In addition to a slew of Weeksville Green programming that day (performances, games, workshops & demos), we will also have guided tours of our current exhibition “Forward Ever – Celebrating Where We At Black Women Artists.”

The Hunterfly Road homes date back to the 1800s and are not accessible by wheelchair. Two of the homes have second floor access only by stairs.