Winter Lyceum: Uncovering African-American History in the Adirondacks

Winter 2023 Lyceum Series

Uncovering African-American History in the Adirondacks

In this talk, Paul Smith’s professor Curt Stager shares the research and writing he has been doing on the history of African Americans in the North Country, including mapping all 3,000 lots given by Garret Smith to Black families to settle in the region in the 1850s and digging up the stories of these families.. He and his wife, Kary Johnson, traveled 5,000 miles this summer on a trip to visit sites in the South connected to Black Adirondackers who lived and died here. This research is helping to uncover their lost history and change the history of the Adirondacks.

Curt is an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, and science journalist who is the author of Deep Future, Your Atomic Self, and Field Notes From the Northern Forest. He brings his diverse background to bear on his books, radio programs, and presentations, blending the long-term perspective of a climate historian and multidisciplinary outlook of a biologist-geologist with the communication skills of a lifelong teacher and writer.