Revolution to Reparations: The Black Experience in New Jersey

This Symposium is being held in conjunction with the unveiling of a historical marker in Newark for Cudjo Banquante. Cudjo was born sometime in the 1720s in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), West Africa into a family of royal heritage. As a youth he was taken by European slave traders across the Atlantic, eventually being purchased by the wealthy Coe family of Newark, New Jersey. During the American Revolution, Benjamin Coe sent the enslaved Cudjo to fight as a substitute for himself in the war against the British. 

After the war Cudjo was emancipated for his military service. The Coe family gave him land in Newark on which he established a nursery selling ornamental plants. Cudjo was the first African American businessperson in Newark. He died in 1823 at around 100 years of age. He was buried in the cemetery of Newark’s Trinity Church, located where the New Jersey Performing Arts Center now stands.

The symposium panels will highlight different aspects of Black history in New Jersey from the Revolution to the present, with special emphasis on public history, and the implications of history for the arts, and politics.

Location: Hahne Building (Express Newark)
Address: 50 Halsey Syt., Newark, NJ 7102