New map offers look at area's civil rights and social justice history

Via the EVG inbox from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP)...

Civil rights and social justice are prominent in our minds as we begin 2017. And few places in America have made more significant contributions to civil rights and social justice struggles for African-Americans, Women, Latinos, Immigrants, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people than the Village, East Village, and NoHo. Now more than ever, it’s important to remember and pay tribute to that history and to the lessons learned from it.

So GVSHP is kicking off 2017 by creating a new Civil Rights and Social Justice Map of the Village, East Village, and NoHo – view it here. You’ll find well-known landmarks like the Stonewall Inn and Judson Memorial Church, locations key to the founding of the ACLU and the Young Lords, and the places where Lorraine Hansberry wrote and Bella Abzug lived. Learn the former sites of some of our city’s first African-American and abolitionist churches, as well as where the NAACP’s iconic “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday” flag flew. Find out where Billie Holiday first sang the anti-lynching anthem ‘Strange Fruit,’ where birth control began, and the spots key to the abolitionist journeys of both Abraham Lincoln and John Brown, among many others.

With nearly a hundred locations, the map just skims the rich surface of civil rights and social justice history in our neighborhoods. Know another site that should be included? Just email it and all information, along with sources, to info@gvshp.org – the map will be updated regularly.