Walking Weeksville: A Black Heritage Public Walking Tour

Bring your walking shoes, water, snacks, and curiosity! Step into the layered history of one of Brooklyn’s most significant yet often overlooked Black communities.

Join us on May 22, 2026, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM for Walking Weeksville: Exploring the Neighborhood’s African American Heritage and Architectural (After)Life, a guided walking tour beginning at Weeksville Heritage Center. This 90-minute experience invites participants to retrace the footprints of Weeksville, a thriving 19th-century free Black community founded in 1839.

Together, we will visit key historic sites that illuminate the social, cultural, and architectural life of the neighborhood, including Bethel Tabernacle AME Church, the former medical office of Susan McKinney Stewart –the first Black woman to practice medicine in New York State–, the grounds of Colored School No. 2 (later P.S. 83/P.S. 68) and the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum, sites that speak to education, carework, and community formation. The experience concludes at the Kingsborough Houses to visit the public artworks of Richmond Barthé and Gerard Pegung, commemorating a continued, thriving Black life in Brooklyn.

Through storytelling and archival insight, participants will engage with the history of this landscape and consider how its past continues to shape the present.

Accessibility: This tour involves extensive walking with breaks. Please be sure to bring comfortable shoes and plenty of water for the activity. Pedestrian walkways are present throughout the entirety of the tour for those with mobility devices.

Rain Date: May 29, 2026 11am - 1 pm 

NOTE: THIS EVENT IS NOT SPONSORED OR SUPPORTED BY THE WEEKSVILLE HERITAGE CENTER OR AFFILIATE ORGANIZATIONS.

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