The city of Rochester, founded in 1803 by three enslavers from Maryland, has over more than 200 years been home to everyday citizens working to ensure full rights for everyone – people like Austin Steward and Thomas James in the 19th century, and Constance Mitchell and Dr. Walter Cooper in the 20th century.
Read on to learn about their accomplishments and consider what lessons we can apply today.
The Senecas, or Onöndowa’ga:’, were living in the Genesee Valley for hundreds of years before Europeans began to settle there. They belonged to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, one of the earliest democratic governments in the world. They resisted white settlers and the American government’s efforts to take their land, including an order from President George Washington to “destroy” their villages.
The Seneca and the rest of the Haudenosaunee lost most of their land through a series of unfair treaties, despite the efforts of Seneca leaders such as Red Jacket, Cornplanter and Ely Parker. In the 1960s more than 10,000 acres of their land was permanently flooded when the government built the Kinzua Dam. Seneca people continue to live, work and practice their culture in the Rochester area.
In 1803, three men from Maryland – Nathaniel Rochester, William Fitzhugh and Charles Carroll – bought the land that became the city of Rochester. They had made their money through enslavement, and all three of them enslaved people when they moved to New York. They were not alone: more than 200 people were held in slavery in the Rochester area in 1810.
One of them was Austin Steward. Born in Virginia around 1793, Steward was brought to New York by an enslaver named William Helm but gained his freedom with the help of Quaker abolitionists. Steward then opened the first Black business in Rochester, and also the first school for Black children in the city.
Because of its location on the Erie Canal, Rochester was an important place on the Underground Railroad. The Rev. Thomas James gained his freedom along the canal and later founded the first Black church in Rochester. Frederick Douglass, publisher of the North Star newspaper, was the most famous abolitionist in the nation. He and his wife, Anna Murray Douglass, worked with other Black and white abolitionists to help countless freedom seekers in Rochester.
By the 1930s, lack of attention to the Third Ward, Rochester’s historic Black neighborhood, had left many houses in poor physical condition. Things got worse in the 1930s, when the federal government worked with realtors and local banks such as ES&L and Rochester Savings Bank to create redlining maps. These maps cautioned against investment in 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 to be risk factors and were barred from receiving loans. Racially restrictive covenants prevented Black people from living in many white neighborhoods unless they were working as servants.
Black community leaders like Howard Coles, publisher of The Voice, fought for improved housing and other civil rights issues. Former migrant workers from the South began to arrive in great numbers in the early 1950s. The areas where these people settled quickly became dangerously overcrowded. In response, the city began to implement “Urban Renewal.” Large sections of Black neighborhoods, including the vibrant heart of Clarissa Street, were bulldozed to make way for highways or redevelopment.
Anger over substandard housing, lack of job opportunities and tension with the Rochester Police Department led to a deadly uprising in July 1964. Five people died and 900 were arrested. The following years saw a burst of activism and organizing. Community leaders like Constance Mitchell, Dr. Walter Cooper and Minister Franklin Florence made huge contributions. So did countless other people, white and Black, who worked for justice in their own homes, neighborhoods and work places.
Los puertorriqueños, que comenzaron a llegar en gran número en la década de 1950, se enfrentaron a un tipo de discriminación muy similar a la que sufrían los afroamericanos, además de tener la desventaja de no hablar inglés. Crearon la Ibero-American Action League en 1968 para ganar una voz en la comunidad.
En 1972, estudiantes de la Unión de Estudiantes Puertorriqueños organizaron una protesta exitosa para la educación bilingüe en el Distrito Escolar de la Ciudad de Rochester.
Como dijo Roberto Burgos, uno de los líderes de esta protesta: “Teníamos miedo. Creiamos que al llevar a cabo este acto de desobediência civil, podíamos ser arrestados. Pero sabía que era lo correcto.”
Puerto Ricans, who began to arrive in large numbers in the 1950s, faced the same sort of discrimination as Black people and had the added problem of not speaking English. They created the Ibero-American Action League in 1968 as a way to gain a voice in the community.
In 1972, students in the Puerto Rican Student Union organized a successful protest for bilingual education in the Rochester City School District.
As one of the student leaders, Roberto Burgos, said: “We were afraid. We thought that by doing this civil disobedience we ran the risk of being arrested. But I knew it was the right thing to do.”
The early 1970s was the beginning of the movement for LGBTQ+ rights in the Rochester area. The Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley, launched at the University of Rochester, was founded to fight stigma and seek basic rights and protections. Its newspaper, The Empty Closet, became one of the longest-running LGBTQ+ newspapers in the nation. In the 1980s, Rochester City Councilman Tim Mains became the first openly gay elected official in New York.
The advocacy of countless LGBTQ+ people and their allies has helped reduce bias and address issues like the HIV/AIDS epidemic, workplace discrimination and marriage equality.
“Home: Access Denied” is a 20-minute short film, for grades 6 and up, about the history and legacy of residential segregation in Greater Rochester.
The film explores the stories of two families and their lived experiences shaped by the neighborhoods they call home. One family living in a ‘greenlined’ suburb, and the other in an urban ‘redlined’ neighborhood, each confronting the deprivations of segregation.
Created by Our Local History, this map documents sites of resistance, many of which are included in the antiracist curriculum materials available on our site. These stories are part of Monroe County’s past and present – and these stories will continue to be part of its future.