Binghamton and the Triple Cities area have always been home to people working toward human rights for everyone. They include abolitionists like Johnson Jones and Stephen Hand as well as 20th-century civil rights leaders like Beccye and Claude Fawcett.
Read on to learn about their lives and accomplishments and consider the lessons that can be applied in the fight for equality today.
Enslavement helped shape the Binghamton region from its beginning – starting with the city’s namesake, William Bingham, who enslaved people. More than 130 people were enslaved in Broome and Tioga counties in 1820, according to U.S. Census records.
The Triple Cities also had many people who worked together toward abolition, in small and large ways. Stephen Hand, a white doctor, worked with members of Binghamton’s Black churches to help hundreds of people on their way to freedom in Canada.
Federal housing policy starting in the 1930s transformed the way people lived in the Triple Cities and elsewhere. The federal government worked with bankers and realtors to create redlining maps that cautioned against investment in Binghamton and Johnson City neighborhoods with racial or ethnic minorities.
The government provided tens of millions of dollars in loans for white people to buy houses in the suburbs. Black people were considered negative influences and could not receive loans. Racially restrictive covenants prevented Black people from living in some white neighborhoods unless they were working as servants. IBM and other large employers hired Black people only for low-paying jobs. It took decades of work by everyday citizens like Beccye and Claude Fawcett to make Broome County more equal for everyone living there.