Meet the Black Brooklynites who defined New York City’s most populous borough through their search for social justice. Before it was a borough, Brooklyn was our nation’s third largest city. Its free Black community attracted people from all walks of life—businesswomen, church leaders, laborers, and writers—who sought to grow their city in a radical anti-slavery vision.

In this book talk, Dr. Prithi Kanakamedala (Professor of History, Bronx Community College and CUNY Graduate Center) will discuss her first full-length book. Brooklynites (NYU Press, 2024) is a cultural and social history as told through four ordinary families from Brooklyn’s nineteenth-century free Black community. Their lives offer valuable lessons on freedom, democracy, and family—both the ones we’re born with and the ones we choose. Their powerful stories continue to resonate today, as borough residents fill the streets in search of a more just city.

Prithi Kanakamedala is a Professor of History at Bronx Community College CUNY. She is also a faculty member in the M.A. in Liberal Studies Program at CUNY Graduate Center. Prithi is an active public historian based in New York City. Brooklynites: the Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough (NYU Press, 2024) is her first full-length book.