19世纪纽约黑人聚居区

While many Americans are familiar with black slavery in the South during the 19th Century and its role in igniting the nation’s great Civil War, less attention has been paid to the black experience in northern cities such as New York, where so-called "freedmen" lived.

很多美国人都熟知19世纪美国南方的黑奴制，以及奴隶制在引发美国内战方面所起的作用。相对而言，注意黑人在北方城市如纽约市的生活情况的人就比较少一些。很多逃跑的黑奴以及所谓的“自由人”住在纽约市。

Now, a new book, "Black Gotham," by University of Maryland Professor Carla Peterson, shines a light on their remarkable stories.

有一本题为《纽约黑人聚居区》的新书介绍了黑人在那里的精彩历史。

Much of the history of black 19th-Century New York has been lost, in part because it was eclipsed in the popular imagination by the saga of southern slavery. Additionally, mostly-white academic historians minimized the contributions of African-Americans. And no comprehensive archive of black life existed until the 20th Century, when the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture was established.

19世纪黑人在纽约的历史大部分都散失了。好几种原因造成了这种情况。南方的奴隶制引人注目，纽约的黑人被忽略了。另外，专业研究历史的人大都是白人，对非洲裔美国人的贡献轻描淡写。黑人历史的全面完整的档案直到20世纪才出现。

Peterson's ancestors were distinguished members of the city’s black elite and she felt theirs was a powerful story that needed to be told. She spent 11 years researching and writing her book.

马里兰大学教授卡拉·彼德森是《纽约黑人聚居区》一书的作者。她的祖先就是纽约市黑人上层社会的成员。她认为纽约黑人的历史十分精彩，应当让人们了解。她为写这本书花了11年的时间搜集材料。

"Writing this book was very important to me," says Peterson. "It was a journey of hard work, but also of love and passion."

她说：“写这本书对我十分重要。写这本书是艰苦劳动的旅程，但也是爱和激情的旅程。”

Led by free blacks such as clergyman Alexander Crummell, newspaper editor Charles Ray and businessman George Downing, members of New York’s black elite tried to establish themselves as full Americans, not merely as "Africans" or "coloreds" as black slaves had once been called and called themselves.

在自由的黑人如牧师亚历山大·克伦梅尔、报纸编辑查尔斯·雷和商界人士乔治·唐宁的领导下，纽约黑人精英阶层试图为自己赢得全面的美国人身份，而不仅仅是“非洲人”或者是“有色人种”。

Like members of outsider groups before and since, this African-American elite considered education to be the key to full citizenship. They also embraced values of character and responsibility.

跟先前的和以后的团体一样，这个黑人精英阶层认为，教育是获得全面公民身份的关键。

"A good, upright moral citizen, valuing temperance, a Protestant ethic of hard work, sobriety and all those kinds of inner values. Respectability then is the outward manifestation of character," says Peterson. "It’s in your appearance, how you dress, how you comport yourself, especially when you’re out on the streets of New York, and especially with whites. No loud, boisterous behavior but being utterly respectable and respectful."

彼德森教授说：“除此之外，还有我所说的人品和尊严等价值。人品是不问种族的，是一个人内在的东西，跟肤色和民族没有关系，是一个人的本质：你必须是一个正直的、讲道德的好公民，珍视节制，拥有刻苦工作的新教伦理，不酗酒，需要这些内在的品质。尊严则是人品的外在表现，比如你的穿着，你的风度，你走在纽约的大街上、跟白人在一起时风度如何。不大声喧哗，行为得体，令人尊敬，也尊敬别人。”

That didn’t mean the status quo went unchallenged. Peterson's book describes salon-style meetings in the back of James McCune Smith’s pharmacy. Smith, who was one of antebellum New York’s most important black leaders, hosted lively debates about voting rights for blacks and the abolition of slavery.

但这一切并不意味着当时纽约的黑人精英阶层没有对当时的状况提出挑战。彼德森的书描述了詹姆斯·麦克库恩·史密斯药房里屋的沙龙聚会。史密斯是南北战争之前纽约最重要的黑人领袖之一。他主持了有关黑人投票权和废除奴隶制问题的生动活泼的辩论。