Willis Hodges dies in Williamsburg in 1890, but his legacy lives on. Photo via NJG.

Willis Hodges, the founder of America’s first Black-owned newspaper, was a prominent figure in Williamsburg. 

GEOFFREY COBB | gcobb91839@Aol.com

Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past

When people think about African American communities in Brooklyn, people might think about East New York, Brownsville or Flatbush, not Williamsburg, but the area was once home to a thriving Black community founded by an amazing, but forgotten Brooklynite, Willis Hodges. Though Hodges’ name is largely forgotten today, his life story and achievements deserve to be recalled, especially during Black History Month.

His life had so many adventures, it seems as if it came straight from a film script. Although Willis Hodges’ life may seem contrived, it is not. Born free to unenslaved African American parents in Virginia in 1815, Hodges learned to read and write at a time when many whites were illiterate and only a handful of African Americans could articulate their stories.  Nat Turner’s rebellion cast a shadow over the Hodges family when his older brother was falsely accused of abetting Tuner in his slave revolt and was imprisoned.  Hodges’ older brother escaped the jail and headed to New York. Incensed whites took vengeance on Hodges’ family, nearly blinding his mother and killing all the family livestock.

Willis arrived in Williamsburg in 1836, where he soon bought land and became a deacon in a local black church. He also became one of the founders of Colored School #2 in Williamsburg, where black children learned to read and write.  Willis also quickly joined the local abolitionist movement and became a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad. Angered by a pro-slavery editorial in a New York newspaper, Hodges paid to print a rebuttal, but his article was stuck in the back of the paper where no one would see it.  When he confronted the publisher, the man told him to start his own newspaper which he did, starting the weekly Ram’s Horn in 1840. His paper featured articles by Fredrick Douglass and John Brown, the leader of the unsuccessful attack on the Harper’s Ferry arsenal. The Ram’s Horn became the first newspaper ever in America published by an African American.

Douglass urged Hodges to “blow away” on his horn, predicting that its “wild, rough, uncultivated notes may grate on the ear of the refined,” but would “be pleasurable to the slave, and terrible to the slaveholder.”

Hodges and Brown became good friends, and it is entirely likely that Hodges knew about Brown’s plans to foment a slave rebellion before the attack on Harper’s Ferry. It’s also possible that Brown pleaded with Hodges to join him in the raid, but we will never know because as soon as Brown was arrested Hodges burned all of his correspondence with Brown.

During the Civil War Hodges disappeared from Brooklyn and there is speculation that he served the Union Army as a scout. At the end of the war, Hodges returned to his birthplace and was chosen to represent Virginia at the constitutional convention of 1867-1868, which marked the first time ever blacks sat alongside whites as lawmakers. Hodges’ leading role at the convention singled him out for attacks in the pro-confederate Southern press, which was openly hostile to African Americans taking part in Reconstruction. Aligning himself with the Radical Republicans, Hodges supported the enfranchisement of blacks, demanded the disenfranchisement of former Confederates, and sought the racial integration of schools. When Democrats returned to power in Virginia at the end of Reconstruction, Hodges returned to Williamsburg where he lived until his death in 1890.

Hodges published his autobiography chronicling his unique African American story, which he dedicated to the free Blacks of the South. Hodges home and store on South Fifth Street were demolished to construct the Williamsburg Bridge, so the physical evidence of his time in Williamsburg is gone, but his important legacy as a writer and abolitionist lives on and should be remembered during Black History Month.

A section of Jackson Avenue was renamed ‘New York Irish Center Way’ in honor of the generations of Irish that have called NYC home. 

GEOFFREY COBB | gcobb91839@Aol.com

Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past

LONG ISLAND CITY  — It was a bitterly cold day on Saturday February 7th for the celebration of the renaming of the stretch of 1040 Jackson Avenue as New York Irish Center Place, but the Irish are a hardy bunch. About seventy brave souls defied the seven-degree day and subzero wind chill to watch City CouncilmemberJulie Won unveil the new street sign.

Won spoke of how her family, which immigrated from South Korea, was warmly greeted by the Irish community when she arrived in Queens as an eight-year-old. She related how Irish mothers passed on educational advice to Won’s mother and how supportive and welcoming the Irish community was to newcomers to Queens.

“It is important to honor the Irish who have done so much to build our community,” Won told me. Won has helped the center receive over $500,000 in grants. She said that last year alone a mind boggling 25,000 people came to the center, including many outside the Irish community.

The Center hosts three annual programs. In March it stages 40 Shades of Green, a Saint Patrick’s Day cultural marathon celebrating Ireland’s patron saint.  Along with Culture Lab LIC & McManus Irish Dance, the center presents the Queens Irish Heritage Festival as well. A world music series called Crossroads Concerts blends and juxtaposes Irish folk traditions with music from many other cultures.

Forty-three different organizations use the center for programming like Irish dance classes and Gaelic language and literature events, but the center’s outreach also includes non-Irish groups that serve the larger community including suicide prevention services, alcoholic anonymous meetings, immigration counseling and an ever-expanding list of others. The center welcomes people of all races, ethnic backgrounds and faiths. Last year, for example, eighteen Indian American events took place at the center. The center also teamed up with  Councilmember Won to raise more than $14,000 in a Christmas toy drive for underprivileged children.

For Twenty-one years, the Irish Center has served as the beating heart of New York City’s Irish community. The idea for the center was conceived by Belfast native Fr. Colm Campbell who saw a need for a place for the Irish community to gather. Angela Reily, the widow of legendary Irish folk singer Paddy Reilly addressed the audience on Saturday: “My husband would be happy to see how successful the center has become,” she said. The singer was instrumental in raising money for the center and helping to found it. Following a long and hard structural renovation and generous gifts from local Irish building contractors, the Center opened its doors in 2005.

The director and beating heart of the New York Irish center is Limerick-born George Heslin, who has run this multi-purpose community center for five years. Prior to his appointment, Heslin served for 19 years as founding Artistic Director of off-Broadway’s Origin Theatre Company. Warm, personable and capable, Heslin is also a recipient of the Irish Examiner/New York Man of The Year Award.  Though Heslin is modest, he proudly noted, “No other Irish organization does what the New York Irish Center does.”

Heslin says that first and foremost the center is a social service organization. The center radiates a typically Irish ability to welcome people, which Heslin demonstrates in his love for people, especially many of the Irish senior citizens for whom the center is a social lifeline.  He describes his work helping Irish seniors living out their lives overseas as a “privilege,” and said that the center plans to create more programs to cater to the needs of older Irish people including new programs in grief counseling and befriending seniors. Many of these seniors now have no living relatives in Ireland and the center is their only true connection to the land of their birth.  Dozens of these Irish seniors look forward to the lunch the center serves them each Wednesday.

Heslin and his small staff have worked hard to expand the cultural offerings the center stages, including traditional Irish music, dance and theater. Last year the center staged an astounding 160 events, which paid some four hundred artists who performed at them. Stageandcinema.com described the vibe at performances there as “ a bit like stumbling into a well-kept secret; it’s an intimate gathering place and an unassuming, cozy, cultural enclave.” The New York Irish Center is much more than a home to the New York Irish community. It is a home for thousands of New Yorkers, many of whom are not even Irish.  As former Executive Director of the New York Irish Center Paul Finnegan remarked, “It is fitting that this section of Jackson Avenue will now be called the NY Irish Center Place because it is home to an inclusive, caring community in a building built lovingly with the hands of its past and present generations.”