Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

by Andrea Elliott

Brooklyn, by comparison, was a haven. Fleeing the draft riots, thousands of Black families left Manhattan for Brooklyn, finding an anchor in the Fort Greene school. This prominent tide included African American scholars, entrepreneurs, doctors, and an inventor. They launched businesses, started newspapers, formed literary clubs, and organized politically, transforming the area into the so-called Black Belt. “WEALTHY NEGRO CITIZENS,” announced The New York Times in 1895, noting that “most of the wealthy negroes” live in Brooklyn—some with white servants and horse-drawn carriages. As many as seventy-one African Americans bought homes, forming the base of Fort Greene’s Black intelligentsia, spiritual leadership, and civil rights vanguard. These currents combined to spectacular effect on November 23, 1883, when the “Colored School” moved into a new building on North Elliott Place.