New York City Walking Tour of 19th Century Sites of Women’s Suffrage Activism by Lisa Merrill
On Thursday, September 29, 2022, I led students from my “Gender, Race and the Struggle for the Woman’s Vote” class on a walking tour in NYC of some of the sites of 19th century women’s suffrage activism, highlighting the roles played by persons of color. Some of the buildings no longer exist, but through my own archival research I could bring students to the location of churches where Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass spoke. Here we are at the original site of Mother Zion AME Church in Greenwich Village. As we walked through the streets, making history come alive, I introduced them to the homes of figures we are studying, such as suffrage and education activist Sarah Smith Garnet, wife of Rev. Henry Highland Garnet: When I first “mapped” out our trip, I selected nine sites in downtown NYC, and 12,000 steps as I introduced students to the sites and the neighborhood referred to as “Little Africa” in the 19th century. Space is an important feature of my historical