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The 1619 Project was a program organized by The New York Times with the goal of re-examining the legacy of slavery in the United States and timed for the 400th anniversary of the arrival in America of the first enslaved people from West Africa. Read below to see how some of the Bell family engaged it...
From left, Dietrich Brown, Stephanie Baker, Saundra Townes, Denise Henderson and Jacqueline Galloway-Blake stand near the moat surrounding Fort Monroe Friday evening August 23, 2019. Galloway-Blake is the descendant of John Tyler Bell, who was born a slave and died emancipated in Virginia. The family members have traveled from across the country to take part in the 1619-2019 Commemoration of the First African Landing.(Jonathon Gruenke / Daily Press)
Descendants of slaves, sisters, cousins from Michigan, Californiamake pilgrimage to Fort Monroe for 1619 commemoration
By LISA VERNON SPARKS - DAILY PRESS | AUG 24, 2019 | 7:23 PM
In May, Jacqueline Galloway-Blake visited relatives in Maryland for the birthday party of her uncle who turned 90.
The Romulus, Mich., resident shared family history, which included stories about her great-grandfather John Tyler Bell.
Bell was born a slave, and died a free man in Virginia.
“My uncle, personally spent a lot of time with (Bell) ... a lot of time as a preschooler with his grandfather, a (former) slave. He shared stories with him," Blake said. “He got to see the scars on his back where he was whipped.”
Blake, 71, and a educator by trade, wanted to learn more.
She and her sister, Stephanie Baker, from California, made the trek across the country Thursday to come to the 1619-2019 Commemoration First African Landing weekend at Fort Monroe.
They met up with four other family members in Maryland — Dietrich Brown; her sister Saundra Townes and two others from Powhatan County: Denise Henderson and Vernell Straughter. The group drove down to Hampton on Friday.
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“It’s like going to a point of beginning, like going to the birthplace of a famous person," Blake said. “It’s the very beginning of the story. For us to be on the very spot ... Point Comfort where the landing took place and those who understand ... black history. It’s so important."
Blake mentioned that people today can never fully understand what it was like to make the arduous journey across the Atlantic and “step out in chains and not knowing what is going to happen,” makes it all the more reason to step foot on those shores today at Fort Monroe, she said.
The weekend commemorations held reflections from the Tucker Family, who claim to be descendants of the first documented Africans to arrival — Antony and Isabella.
Blake said so much of the history about first Africans and the contributions African-Americans have made in the 400 years since has not been shared.
“Trying to correct the slanted view of the history that has been taught," Blake said. “This event is an opportunity to correct the omission, that is why I am so happy to be apart of this.”
The idea to come to the commemoration spread like wildfire among the family.
Blake, whose family owns inherited land from her great-grandfather in Powhatan County, also is interested because of the historic significance of the United States acknowledging the arrival.
She also wanted to visit Hampton University - where her mother is an alumnae.
“To put out feet on the land where all this happened 400 years ago ... and tour the campus and the Emancipation Oak and for us to go back to share that — we want to be inspired,” she said.
Riverhead to designate its first heritage area, spotlighting the African-American settlers of Bell Town in Aquebogue
By Denise Civiletti - Riverhead Local | Feb 26, 2021 | 7:14 PM
The Rev. Mary Cooper, and her daughter Marylin Banks-Winter, stand under the street sign bearing their family name.
Photo: Denise Civiletti
Riverhead Town is designating its first-ever heritage area, a designation intended to encourage an appreciation of the history of an area.
The town board on Tuesday will designate the Bell Town Heritage Area in Aquebogue, an area located north of Hubbard Avenue settled in the 1930s by four brothers from Powhatan County, Virginia.
The designation comes at the suggestion of the Riverhead Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Mansfield, Condry, Ezekiel and Melkiah Bell, inherited a farm in Powhatan, said Mansfield Bell’s granddaughter Marylin Banks Winter of Riverhead. They sold the land and used the money to move to Aquebogue, where they bought land first near the end of Edgar Avenue.
Mansfield Bell in an undated family photo.
The Bell brothers later purchased 16 acres near the southern end of a Downs family farm in Aquebogue, where they laid out Bell Avenue, Hobson Drive and Zion Street, which stretch north from Hubbard Avenue, and created 32 residential lots that they sold to family and friends who had also moved north from Virginia, Wines said.
Wines has researched the history of the area using census records and newspapers in both Aquebogue and Powhatan. Many African-American Riverhead families trace their roots to Powhatan, Virginia, Wines said.
The Bell brothers moved to Aquebogue at a time of what’s known as the Great Migration, sometimes known as the Great Northward Migration or the Black Migration, Wines said. It was a time during which some 6 million African-Americans moved out of the rural southern United States to the northeast, midwest and west between 1916 and 1970.
“Preserving and documenting ‘Bell Town’ history is vital to the complete history of Riverhead,” Wines said.
The Bell brothers were farmers, baymen and entrepreneurs, Banks-Winter said. They were also singers and sang together in their own gospel band, as well as in other gospel bands. They grew up in church and learned to read because their father James, who taught himself how to read, was a deacon of his church and taught his sons how to read the Bible, she said.
Her grandfather Mansfield would go on to work as an accountant. He was also the youngest Sunday school superintendent in Long Island, Banks-Winter said. He was the first superintendent of Sunday school at First Baptist Church.
The Rev. Mary Cooper, born Mary Alice Bell, lives in the house she grew up in on Hubbard Avenue in Aquebogue.
Photo: Denise Civiletti
His daughter, Mary Alice Bell — Banks-Winter’s mother — was born in 1938. She became an ordained minister and is the longtime pastor of House of Praise Christian Revival Center in Riverhead.
The Rev. Mary Cooper lives in the house she grew up in on Hubbard Avenue. Standing on Hubbard Avenue this afternoon, under a street sign that bears her father’s surname, she points to houses where her uncles and other family members once lived. She recalled walking to the Aquebogue school as a child, before there was school bus service to her house.
Hubbard Avenue was very different back then, she said with a laugh. “There was a lot less traffic.”
Pattie Bell in an undated family photo.
Her mother’s maiden name was also Bell. Mansfield met Pattie Bell in New York. Pattie’s family was Native American.
“She was a Corchaug, part of the Montaukett tribe,” Banks-Winter said. Her grandfather’s family also had ties to Native American tribes in Virginia, she said.
“Pattie was a double Bell,” Banks-Winter quipped.
“Being one of the youngest grandchildren of Pattie and Mansfield, there’s a lot that I didn’t even know about my own family,” she said. She said she has taken up genealogical research in an effort to fill in the missing pieces of family history. She enjoys it and has learned a lot, Banks-Winter said.
She never knew her grandfather, who died at age 49 in 1959, years before she was born. But her grandmother Pattie, born in 1918, lived until 1994.
“It’s important not to let our history slip away,” she said. “So much is unwritten and we have to capture it while we can, by talking with people, probing their memories and sharing it with others.”
Councilman Frank Beyrodt, liaison to the landmarks committee, brought the resolution to the town board at its work session yesterday.
“A heritage designation is used by the state and neighboring towns. It’s an honorary title bestowed in recognition of special character to cherish the rich historic heritage of the area and the community,” Beyrodt said.
“So I was fascinated by the history but not surprised. You know we have such a rich African-American community here,” Beyrodt said.
Councilman Tim Hubbard, who lives on Hubbard Avenue, said he grew up with and went to school with the Bell family. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” he said.
The town plans to have a sign made to commemorate the heritage area.