This story is part of an ongoing journalistic initiative to rally the community and the country around a critical, but endangered, historical site: Sandy Ground, the nation’s oldest free Black settlement still inhabited by descendants of its pioneers.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — When they glance around Rossville today, cousins Lucille Herring and Jerome Moody see beyond the large homes, traffic lights and congestion. They see the Sandy Ground community that built them.
“When I look out my window, I see my grandfather’s house; I see that house as it was when I was a kid; now that’s a pleasant memory,” said Moody, 81, a descendant of historic Sandy Ground, the nation’s oldest free Black settlement still inhabited by descendants of its pioneers…