The Beat

Seneca Falls, NY – Women's Rights National Historical Park and The Friends of Women’s Rights National Historical Park are pleased to announce the opening of Radical Optimism: The Enduring Power of the Women Who Won the Vote at the Fall Street Visitor Center. The exhibit on the second floor of the museum was commissioned by the Friends as part of the commemoration of the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. …

"Four Divisions Formed at Fort Carillon: 1757 French Raid on Fort William Henry"

Saturday, February 27th

Presented as part of the Center for Digital History’s Digital Campaign

Ticonderoga, N.Y. – Fort Ticonderoga presents a Virtual Living History Event on February 27, 2021 as part of its Digital Campaign - an exciting virtual experience featuring interactive programming, engaging lectures series, and creative at-home educational activities and resources. 

This virtual event will highlight French Regulars and Canadians assembling at Fort Carillon, later named Ticonderoga, preparing to march across frozen Lake George to surprise the British in 1757. During 3 exciting living history demonstrations, watch as French soldiers build scaling ladders and prepare to march and encamp in winter’s deep snow to carry forward this surprise attack.

Scheduled for Saturday, February 27, 2021 from 1-2:30 PM

Utica, N.Y. – Join the Utica/Oneida County Branch NAACP to celebrate Black History Month 2021 with its annual program hosted by History Center. This virtual event will follow the 2021 national theme, The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity, which provides a rich tapestry of images for exploring the African American past and present.  The program features a variety of presentations including a speech from Pastor Angela Carter, performances by Jonathan “J Easy” Brooks and Nomadic Voices, and Black History Moments with students from the Mohawk Valley Jr. Frontiers and Young Scholars. Members of the NAACP will also share information about their organization and community announcements.

Schenectady, NY – A new public history project focused on Schenectady’s African American history will preserve primary sources and enable future generations to engage with the community’s historical records. Primary sources are the keys to understanding history, and access to those materials helps communities to connect to their past. The African American Historical Records Project, a collaboration coordinated by the Schenectady County Historical Society, will create a catalog of historical records created by the African American community in Schenectady.

New York, N.Y. – While the Museum of the Moving Image building continues to be closed, programming continues online with Virtual Cinema, live discussions, and virtual tours (bookings available for groups and families). Archived events, including recorded conversations with filmmakers, and educational resources for teachers and families are available online via MoMI’s YouTube page. 

Additional programs will be announced as they are confirmed.

Peterboro, N.Y. – The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum (NAHOF) concludes the February 2021 Black History Matters programs in the coming week. These programs address key events in our national history and are topics that are lesser known or whose implications are not usually understood. The brief twenty-eight programs will remain on the NAHOF website after February.

Monday, February 22                    H.R. 40 and the Quest for Reparations

JJ. Citron and Jeff McArn will center this program around legislation H.R. 40, which has been discussed in the House of Representatives for over three decades. The legislation has not made it beyond debate within the house. In addition to explaining the text itself, the presentation will also include videos of 2019 congressional testimonies by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Coleman Hughes (in favor and against reparations, respectively) on Juneteenth. Citron and McArn plan to center Black voices and perspectives on H.R. 40 throughout the presentation. With this in mind, they will also be including prominent voices who have weighed in on the case for reparations, including politicians, religious figures, political organizers and activist groups.

President Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Recording Included in Exhibit

The New York State Museum and the New York State Writers Institute have partnered to bring the First Step to Freedom exhibit to the University at Albany campus in honor of Black History Month, State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa announced today. The historically remarkable exhibit includes a display of the only surviving version of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in President Abraham Lincoln’s handwriting. The First Step to Freedom also includes the only known audio recording of a speech written and delivered by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in New York City in September 1962 for the Proclamation’s centennial. The exhibit opened, appropriately, on President’s Day and will be open to UAlbany students, faculty and staff through March 15.

The Symposium will take place on April 10 and 17, 2021

Ticonderoga, N.Y. -- The King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga presents the Ninth Annual Garden & Landscape Symposium virtually on two consecutive Saturday mornings, April 10 & 17, 2021.

This online program features practical, easy-to-implement strategies for expanding and improving your garden or landscape. We invite you to join, whether you are an experienced gardener or you are just getting started, for helpful insights from garden experts who live and garden in northern climates.

The retrospective exhibition of Rochester native and R.I.T. alum Chiarenza, will be on view through June 20

Rochester, N.Y. — The George Eastman Museum has just premiered a retrospective of artist Carl Chiarenza’s (American, b. 1935) nearly seventy-year career this winter. The exhibition, Carl Chiarenza: Journey into the Unknown, was curated by William Green and will remain on view through June 20.

This retrospective exhibition spans the Rochester-based artist’s entire career, beginning with early photographs Chiarenza made as a high school student in Rochester in the 1950s and concluding with a large selection of his most recent collage work. It highlights his accomplishments not only as a photographer, but also as a longtime professor of art history, a renowned critic, and an award winning biographer. The exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to follow the continuities and ruptures in Chiarenza’s artistic journey as his career enters its seventh decade.

Newburgh, NY (February 6, 2021) – Historical archivist/librarian, Sue Gardner, has been named the 2021 Martha Washington Woman of History. This award is given annually by Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site to a woman who has made a contribution to the history of the Hudson Valley through education, promotion, or preservation. The honor was inspired by Martha Washington, an outstanding woman in history who resided in the Hudson Valley with her husband, General George Washington, during the last days of the Revolutionary War.