A hotel on Bank Street where Black sailors were beaten during a night of rioting in 1919. The family home of New London’s first Black elected official on Rogers Street. A Green Street building that housed the United Negro Welfare Council and a Black lending institution in the 1920s, and the site of New London’s first school for Black children, opened in 1837 by a once-enslaved man, aged 81, in his Union Street residence.

These are four of the 15 original sites on New London’s Black Heritage Trail, marked by bronze plaques unveiled in 2021.

On that fall day, speakers and onlookers drove or walked between events at the Lancaster house on Rogers Street—where 93-year-old Spencer C. Lancaster, elected to the Board of Selectmen in 1960, addressed the crowd—and the Hempsted Houses, a museum property owned by Connecticut Landmarks.

In conjunction with UNESCO’s Slave Route Project last summer, a 16th plaque, marking where the slave ship Speedwell arrived from Africa in 1761, was added on July 17 at Amistad Pier; a plaque nearby commemorates the Amistad Rebellion.

Former New London City Council member Curtis K. Goodwin called the Black Heritage Trail’s creation—a collaborative effort by the city, local nonprofits and a handful of committed individuals—a “focal point” of his term.

After attending a New London Landmarks presentation at St. James Episcopal Church in September 2019 with longtime friend and campaign staffer Nicole Thomas of Connecticut Landmarks, Goodwin was “inundated and inspired” by the story of Ichabod Pease, the 81-year-old school founder. Pease, Goodwin said, hadn’t been mentioned during his New London school days.

“[I learned] about Martin Luther King,” said Goodwin, remembering his history lessons, “and we have heroes in our backyard.” Pease, Goodwin said, was “what I envision to be a role model for a Black man.”

Tom Schuch, who gave the Pease presentation with University of Connecticut student Mary Lycan, recalls the event being “packed” with attendees. The event, a fundraiser to restore Pease’s gravestone in Cedar Grove Cemetery, brought in $1,750, enough to restore the grave markers of both Pease and his wife, Rose.

A retired social services manager who grew up in New London, Schuch has a passion for hidden history, especially when it relates to the Whaling City, the Civil War and slavery and segregation in the North.

“Who knew that in 1774, New London [County] was the largest slaveholding section in New England?” he remarked, still amazed by the fact.

Having learned to do property research years ago at Georgetown University, Schuch revived those skills in the vault at New London City Hall, which holds records going back to the 1600s. Prior to abolition, Schuch pointed out, “enslaved people were property.”

Also in the audience that night was state prosecutor Lonnie Braxton II, “the repository of New London’s Black history,” according to New London Landmarks Executive Director Laura Natusch.

Soon to retire from his senior assistant state’s attorney position, Braxton joined the trail team, writing the text for the markers at the Hotel Bristol, scene of the 1919 riot, and at the Franklin Street home of civil rights leader Linwood Bland Jr.

About Bland, Braxton said: “He was more than a leader. He was an icon, he was a diplomat, he was a servant of the people.”

Goodwin’s initial plan was to install a marker at the site of Pease’s school—located where the Salvation Army parking lot is today—and host “a day in his honor,” he said.

Though Goodwin had helped sand the Amistad replica in middle school and did some guiding at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, history had not been a consuming interest. Spurred on by the combined enthusiasm of Thomas, Schuch, Natusch and Braxton, however, the newly elected council member set his sights on a full-fledged Black Heritage Trail.

Another member of the trail team, New London Director of Economic Development and Planning Felix Reyes, Lancaster’s neighbor as a boy, contacted Natusch to see if New London Landmarks would assist with the research.

“The beautiful thing about Felix contacting us was that it was easy for us to say yes,” said Natusch, noting that New London Landmarks was already engaged with Black history, bringing to light the stories of the demolished Shapley Street neighborhood and New London’s Black whalers, for example.

According to Natusch, there has been “a real cultural shift” in the preservation field from saving buildings for their architecture to saving them for their social history. She cited two sites on the trail: the Bank Street houses owned by Cabo Verde-born whaler Antone DeSant, and the 38 Green Street offices, “a hotbed of Black heritage.”

One of Thomas’s contributions was researching Adam Jackson, enslaved by New London justice of the peace Joshua Hempstead, who refers to Adam and his parents, John and Joan, in his celebrated 18th-century diary.

“I take Adam’s story very personally,” said Thomas. “I grew up with Hempstead descendants. It’s all very close to home.”

Mentioning events on the Hempstead grounds, such as the virtual campfires of the Slave Dwelling Project and Tammy Denease’s portrayals of Joan Jackson at Juneteenth events, Thomas said she thinks of the Hempsted Houses as a “town green” and a hub of Black history.

The main researcher of several trail sites, now delving into the “real” West Indies trade, Schuch shared one of his motivations: “This is our gift to the future of New London, to the children of New London.” He and Braxton are currently involved with the ethnic studies curriculum developed by New London High School teacher Linda Pfeiffer.

Meanwhile, Goodwin, continuing to serve as project manager, is forging ahead with a “more immersive” phase two, to include additional markers and a recorded narration accessed by QR codes. (Said Thomas: “I can’t wait for someone to call me and say, ‘When can you record?’”) Telling the story of New London’s Indigenous heritage is also on the drawing board, under a “New London Cultural Trails” umbrella.

“We aren’t leaving anyone out,” commented Braxton. “What I hope the trail will do is be a bridge-builder … that it will make us all proud to be Americans.”