And we're celebrating it. (Maybe you thought there was no black history in the Catskills?)
Check out this find from the papers of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society: depositions from an 1822 trial in Catskill, Greene County in which "James Fox a negro" is accused of being a runaway slave.
Bard College prof Myra Young Armstead has written a brief history of African-Americans in Sullivan County from the 1930s to the 1980s, and you can find it here.
Also worth checking out: Honor to the Hills, a young adult historical fiction about the Underground Railroad, set in the Catskills in the 1850s.
Image: The Main Street Bistro in New Paltz celebrates the occasion. (There's another 's' in there somewhere, guys. But the pancakes sound awesome.) Photo by Lissa Harris.
