South Street Seaport Museum Announces Black Oystermen of New York Harbor

South Street Seaport Museum announces Black Oystermen of New York Harbor on Friday, June 26, 2026 at 6:30pm at 213 Water Street. Advanced registration is suggested for this free event. Book free tickets at https://southstreetseaportmuseum.org/oystermen/.

Join the South Street Seaport Museum and the Sandy Ground Historical Society for a fascinating exploration of one of New York City’s earliest free Black communities and the maritime industry that helped it thrive.

Presented by the Director of the Sandy Ground Historical Society, Julie Moody Lewis, this special lecture will examine the lives of free Black oystermen and their families during the decades before the Emancipation Proclamation. Through stories, historical context, and objects brought from the Society’s collection, you will gain a deeper understanding of what liberty and freedom looked like in a maritime city at a time when slavery had been abolished in New York but remained legal in much of the United States.

The program highlights the history of Sandy Ground, a community on Staten Island that grew rapidly in the 1840s when free Black families migrated north from Snow Hill, Maryland. Facing increasingly restrictive laws that limited African American participation in Maryland’s oyster industry, these families sought new opportunities in the oyster-rich waters of Staten Island’s Prince’s and Raritan Bays, where they established a thriving community rooted in maritime labor, entrepreneurship, and resilience.