1	Whom do we choose to commemorate? Samuel F. B. Morse [Statue unveiled 1871] Born. Charlestown, MA, 1791 • died. New York, 1872 A statue of Samuel Morse, an American painter and inventor, is located at the entrance of Inventor’s Gate on the east side of Central Park near 72nd Street. Morse is shown standing next to his best known invention and holding a strip of Morse Code. Morse was a founder and first President of the National Academy of Design established in 1825. Its office is just outside the park.
2	Whom do we choose to commemorate? Samuel F. B. Morse [Statue unveiled 1871] Born. Charlestown, MA, 1791 died. New York, 1872 In his journal, Morse wrote that “Slavery . . . is not sin. It is a social condition ordained from the beginning of the world for the wisest purposes, benevolent and disciplinary, by Divine Wisdom.”
3	Whom do we choose to commemorate? Dr. James Marion Sims [Statue unveiled 1892] born. Lancaster Co., SC, 1813 died. New York, 1883 On the outside wall of Central Park near 103rd street is a statue of Dr. James Marion Sims. Because he developed new surgical procedures and surgical instruments, Dr. Sims is honored as a pioneer and founder of modern medicine and gynecology. His work as a doctor helped to save the lives of women with childbirth problems, including enslaved African women. In 1853, Dr. Sims moved to New York City and established the Woman’s Hospital of the State of New York. He later established the Cancer Hospital, which is now known as the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
4	Whom do we choose to commemorate? Dr. James Marion Sims [Statue unveiled 1892] born. Lancaster Co., SC, 1813 died. New York, 1883 Between 1845 and 1849, Dr. Sims performed experimental gynecological operations on countless enslaved African women in the American south including over 34 experimental operations on a single woman without the benefit of anesthesia or any type of antiseptic. Many of the women he experimented on lost their lives to infection.
5	New York Mayor William Havemeyer Slave Imports to Cuba, 1835-1850 Year Bozales 1835 18,922 1840 14,470 1845 1,300 1850 3,500
6	Jamaican Sugar Plantation
7	Moses Taylor- Merchant and Banker
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11	Archbishop John Hughes
12	"1854" 1854. Archbishop Hughes Defends Slavery and the Slave Trade Sources: The New York Times, May 2, 1854, p. 2. John Hughes, an immigrant from Ireland, became the acting head of New York Roman Catholic diocese in 1838. He was appointed its bishop in 1842 and an archbishop of the church in 1850. In 1853 and 1854, Archbishop Hughes traveled in Cuba and the American South where he was a guest on a number of plantations and witnessed the slave system first hand. In May, 1854, Hughes delivered a sermon at old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in what is now Soho, where he discussed his experiences during this trip. Hughes claimed to recognize that “slavery is an evil,” but declared it was “not an absolute and unmitigated eveil” because it brought Africans to Christianity. He believed that conditions for Africans were actually improved by enslavement and claimed that during his trip he had “taken pains to inquire of some who had been brought to Cuba as slaves from the Coast of Africa, whether they wished to return, and they invariably stated they did not; and the reason is that their conditions here, degraded as it is, is much better than it was at home, . . .so it is really a mitigation of their lot to be sold into foreign bondage.”, even of the slaver, in snatching them from the butcheries of their native land.”
13	Fernando Wood Harper’s Weekly, 1864. Wood supported McClellan against Lincoln in the 1864 President election
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15	It is time to tell the truth Slavery did happen here. However, I tend to support the position that by the beginning of the 19th century, the institution of slavery had faded in importance in New York City to the point that it did not have a long-term impact on the community. Slavery in New York was part of a pre-industrial world. It did not have the same impact on American history that the enslavement of African Americans did in the American South. However, New York City’s role as the center of the illegal trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the 19th century is a totally different story. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard has proposed that since “many Western nations reaped large and lasting benefits from African slavery, while African nations did not,” the industrialized West bears a collective responsibility for the condition of Africa today. He calls for massive investment to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa and economically develop the continent. [“The Future of Slavery's Past” by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times, Sunday, July 29, 2001, sec. 4, p. 15] I wholeheartedly endorse Gates’ proposal but would add similar investment in rebuilding American cities and the development of the Caribbean islands, home to millions of displaced Africans.