An op-ed piece was posted to the New York Times’s “Opinionator” by Carla L. Peterson, whose book, Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City, will be published next month. As part of the Times’s Disunion series, following the Civil War as it unfolded as we approach the 150^th anniversary of Lincoln’s inauguration, rising hostilities, and the first shots at Fort Sumter this spring, Peterson has contributed a story about blacks in New York and their back room political activism in the lead-up to conflict.

Keep up with the Times series on Facebook, and stay tuned for more updates on Black Gotham when we celebrate Black History Month in February.