For information call:
Clifford Laube at (845) 486-7745
The Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presidential Library and Museum
and the Mid-Hudson Antislavery
History Project present a
conversation and book signing
with Debra Bruno author of
A HUDSON VALLEY RECKONING:
DISCOVERING THE FORGOTTEN
HISTORY OF SLAVEHOLDING IN
MY DUTCH AMERICAN FAMILY
Wednesday, November 13, 2024; 6PM
In-person: Wallace Center at the
FDR Presidential Library and Home
Online: Streamed live
to the official FDR Library
YouTube and Facebook accounts
HYDE PARK, NY -- The FDR Presidential Library and Museum and the Mid-Hudson Antislavery History Project present a conversation and book signing with Debra Bruno, author of A HUDSON VALLEY RECKONING: DISCOVERING THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF SLAVEHOLDING IN MY DUTCH AMERICAN FAMILY, at 6:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. The event will be held in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home and streamed live to the official FDR Presidential Library YouTube and Facebook accounts. Registered attendees can visit the Library's special exhibition, BLACK AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, AND THE ROOSEVELTS, free of charge before the program, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. This is a free public event, but registration is required to attend in-person. CLICK HERE for in-person registration.
Synopsis:
A HUDSON VALLEY RECKONING tells the long-ignored story of slavery's history in upstate New York through Debra Bruno's chronicle that uncovers her Dutch ancestors' slave-holding past and leads to a deep connection with the descendants of the enslaved people her family owned.
Bruno, who grew up in New York's Hudson Valley knowing little about her Dutch heritage, was shaken when a historian told her that her Dutch ancestors were almost certainly slaveholders. Driven by this knowledge, she began to unearth her family's past. In the last will and testament of her ancestor, she found the first evidence: human beings bequeathed to his family along with animals and furniture. The more she expanded her family tree, the more enslavers she found. She reached out to Black Americans tracing their own ancestry, and by serendipitous luck became friends with Eleanor C. Mire, a descendent of a woman enslaved by Bruno's Dutch ancestors.
A HUDSON VALLEY RECKONING recounts Bruno's journey into the nearly forgotten history of Northern slavery and of the thousands of enslaved people brought in chains to Manhattan and the Hudson Valley. With the help of Mire, who provides a moving epilogue, Debra Bruno tells the story of white and Black lives impacted by the stain of slavery and its long legacy of racism, as she investigates the erasure of the uncomfortable truths about our family and national histories.
Debra Bruno is a journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic, among many other publications. She lives in Washington, DC. For more information, visit her website www.debrabruno.com.
Please contact Cliff Laube at (845) 486-7745 with questions about the event.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
