Welcome to HarlemNOW's Harlem: The Capital of Black America tour. This is a recording of a walking tour given by attorney and historian James Kaplan and Olivia Kaplan in October, 2009. The tour visited various places of historical significance in central Harlem.
This section of the tour discusses the growth of Harlem from the draft riots of the Civil War to the Great Depression. First considered a German and then a Jewish neighborhood, Harlem began to see significant numbers of Black residents by the turn of the century. Instrumental to this growth were the Black churches and Black-owned realty companies battling against exclusionary housing practices in central Harlem. This new Black "Capital" was to become the home of many organizations devoted to racial justice, such as the NAACP.