
New York City is renowned as a global center of finance, commerce and culture, but its role in slavery is far lesser known.
Although the slave trade is typically associated with the American South, it was once a major slave trading space, and its development was deeply entwined with slavery.
“New York was not a bystander to slavery, far from it,” says Richard French IV near the conclusion of the documentary The Hidden History of Slavery in New York. “My home state engineered it, built its city on the backs of its oppressed and profited from it. When given a chance to lead in ending its practice, its leaders instead chose to extend it.”
The New York Emmy Award-winning documentary was produced by Larry Epstein based on an idea from French, who was then a student at Rye Country Day School. Epstein will be featured during a Feb. 22 showing of the film in Peekskill.
French proposed the project after he went on a tour of sites connected with the city’s slave trade, including the African Burial Ground National Monument on Lower Broadway, where upward of 15,000 remains of free and enslaved Africans dating from the 1630s to 1795 were discovered.
He also read the book The 1619 Project, and realized how much had been left out of his history books.

The project was an eye-opener for Epstein, who researched, lined up guests and wrote the script for the 32-minute film.
“I was shocked at the city I loved’s role in the transatlantic slave trade,” Epstein said. “I’m a native New Yorker and also history buff and when I learned that one of the largest slave markets on the continent was on Wall Street and that New York Harbor had dozens of slave ships using it, I was horrified and surprised. And I also started to think about the fact that this stuff wasn’t in our history books and should be taught.”
Epstein, of Beacon, N.Y., a freelance producer and director at RNN-TV and affiliated stations, had worked with French’s father, TV host Richard French III, as executive producer. Epstein is also a River Journal contributor.
The documentary, which is available on YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, includes an interview with Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative.
Stevenson points out that the failure to reckon with this painful chapter is preventing the nation from achieving freedom and equity.
“For too long the strategy has been to deny, to minimize or to not educate people about the role of slavery and the harm of slavery, the trauma of slavery, the brutality of slavery, in our educational spaces,” Stevenson says in the film.
Also appearing is Stacey Toussaint, whose Inside Out Tours include sites connected with slavery and the Underground Railroad,
“One of the things I’m most proud of is we’re educating so many people about what happened in our own city, because the education system has failed in that regard,” Epstein said,
Lincoln Day Remembrance
- Larry Epstein will introduce a showing of The Hidden History of Slavery in New York as part of the annual Lincoln Day Remembrance at noon on Saturday, Feb. 22, at the Lincoln Depot Museum, 10 South Water St., Peekskill. The screening is followed by a question-and-answer session. A donation of $10 for adults is suggested.
- Lincoln Day Remembrance celebrates Lincoln’s only speaking stop in Westchester County on Feb. 19, 1861, at the old railroad depot in Peekskill during the train journey to his inauguration.
- The day begins with an 11 a.m. wreath-laying ceremony at the Lincoln Exedra on South Street, the site of Lincoln’s train stop. That’s followed by an 11:30 a.m. re-enactment of the 16th president’s speech, which takes place at the Lincoln Depot Museum.
- Visit lincolnsocietyinpeekskill.org for more information on the program.
- Visit larryeproductions.com for more on Epstein’s work.
Captions:
Documentary screenshot:
Richard French IV (left) interviewed Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, in the documentary The Hidden History of Slavery in New York.
Larry Epstein:
Larry Epstein, executive producer of the documentary The Hidden History of Slavery in New York, at the New York Emmy Award ceremony. Contributed photo