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About Black Hamptons
Black Whalers
As early as 1687 there were 25 Black people living in East Hampton out of a population of 500. Black whalers, including a former solider, Stephen Pharaoh (also known as Stephen Talkhouse - hence the Talkhouse Club in Amangasset), played a significant role in the whaling industry,
Black whalers were among the first Americans to reach the Alaskan panhandle and the Arctic. Some Black women from whaling families in Sag Harbor became landowners and matriarchs of their households.
AME Church
Founded in 1840, the St. David African Methodist Episcopal Chuch was constructed by Black and Irish Americans and the Montauk and Shinnecock people in the Eastville community of Sag Harbor. The cemetary is a historic burial ground where Reverend J. P. Thompson, the first pastor of the Church rests.
Rev.Thompson, was an abolitionist and confidant of Frederick Douglass and collaborated with with the Quakers to form a sanctuary on the Underground Railroad in Eastville. The Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor was founded in 1981 and chartered by New York State in 1986 to preserve the history of of Eastville, Black whalers, and the St. David AME Zion Church.
Black New Yorkers Go Out East
Black families in New York City began purchasing summer property in Sag Harbor during the late 1940s. While visiting Eastville, Maude Terry, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, discovered a strip of marshy woodland of little interest to local developers with trails to a beautiful beachfront. She envisioned a welcoming place where Black families could summer on the beach.
Her sister Amaza Lee Meredith was one of the country’s first Black female architects. Their project led to Azurest, a subdivision of 70 lots, including several houses designed by Meredith. Lot buyers were doctors, entrepreneurs, lawyers, professors, and artists. Azurest grew to nearly 100 houses and inspired other Black neighborhoods like Ninevah and Sag Harbor Hills (now collectively known as Historic Black Beachfront Communities).
The arrival of celebrities such as Lena Horne, Roscoe Brown, Duke Ellington, Harry Belafonte, and B. Smith as well as a New York State Supreme Court Justice and a U.S. Ambassador added Hamptons swag, Sag Harbor has long been a prominent Black Hamptons community attracting visitors all year.