Jennifer A. Lemak – författare

The inspirational story of an African American community that migrated from the Deep South to Albany, New York, in the 1930s.Southern Life, Northern City is the inspirational story of an African American community in Albany that has fought doggedly for generations to preserve its legacy and way of life. In the 1920s and 1930s rural African American families living in Shubuta, Mississippi, began relocating to Albany, New York. These former sharecroppers initially settled in Albany's South End, but quickly became unhappy with the vice and overcrowding of city life. A leading member of this community, Reverend Louis W. Parson, courageously led the effort to purchase land on the city's western edge. The newly relocated residents enthusiastically recreated their rural southern life in the north-building homes, planting crops, hunting, and raising families. Fifty years later, their settlement found itself threatened by sprawl, commercial development, and corporate greed. Joining forces with public historians and preservationists, the residents triumphed, with the Rapp Road community being named a New York State and a National Historic District.

Examines the pivotal role New York State played in the Civil War.An Irrepressible Conflict documents the pivotal role New York State played in our nation's bloodiest and most enduring conflict. As the wealthiest and most populous state in the Union, the Empire State led all others in supplying men, money, and material to the causes of unity and freedom. New York's experience provides significant insight into the reasons why the war was fought and the meaning that the Civil War holds today.A companion to the award-winning exhibition of the same name, displayed at the New York State Museum from September 2012 to March 2014, An Irrepressible Conflict includes reproductions of objects from the collections of the New York State Museum, Library, and Archives, as well as more than twenty-five different institutions across the state. Among the many significant objects are a Lincoln life mask from 1860 from the New-York Historical Society; the earliest photograph of Frederick Douglass (a rare 8″ x 10″ daguerreotype image, courtesy of the Onondaga Historical Association); the only known portrait of Dred Scott, also from New-York Historical Society; and a bronze medal given to the defenders of Fort Sumter by the City of New York from the museum's own collection.The title is inspired by an 1858 quote from then US Senator William H. Seward, who also served as governor of New York (1839–42) and Secretary of State (1861–69). Seward disagreed with those who believed that the prospect of war between the North and South was the work of "fanatical agitators." He understood that the roots of conflict went far deeper, writing, "It is an irrepressible conflict, between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation."