Mighty Change, Tall Within; Black Identity in the Hudson Valley.

Myra B. Young Armstead, Editor. Mighty Change, Tall Within; Black Identity in the Hudson Valley. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2003.

The Hudson Valley, so named because of the river that flows the extent of it, from as far north as the Lake George region south to New York City. Or, "in the popular mind the Hudson Valley may refer to those bucolic stretches of land sandwiched between New York City and Albany ..." (p. 5). Mighty Change, Tall Within Black Identity in the Hudson Valley is an ambitious project that addresses the issues of transformation and continuity of black identity. As the book's editor stated, the "volume attempts to underscore the mighty change in the identity of blacks in the region over nearly 400-year period ..."--from enslaved of the seventeenth century to multiethnic/multinational in the twenty-first century (p. 4). Yet in order to do this--given the dearth of more contemporary research on black identity in the Hudson Valley of "the popular mind"--the book had to alter the configuration of the region. Its valley includes Manhattan Island at the river's mouth, southern portions of Westchester County, and northeastern New Jersey.

The contributing authors, despite what can be described as the use of broad brush strokes to argue transformation and continuity of black identity in the Hudson Valley, nevertheless, have put together interestingly revealing threads that make up this historical and contemporary quilt on the Hudson Valley. Some of the threads seem out of place and the quilt as woven is surely not the definitive word. Those threads that seem out of place in terms of the valley as defined by that "popular mind," are the four chapters on New York City and the one on Yonkers, a suburb of the city. The Graham Russell Hodges' chapter, "The Emergence of a New Black Religious Identity in New York City and Eastern New Jersey, 1624-1807," although a thread that clearly falls within the purview of the book's title, creates more of a flaw than add to the symmetry of the quilt. The same can be said of the Paul Stoller chapter ("Spaces, Places, and fields: The Politics of West African Trading in New York City's Informal Economy") and Sherri-Ann P. Butterfield's chapter ("Something in Between: Locating Identity Among Second Generation West Indians in New York City"). These latter two are definitely fillers for that dearth of more contemporary research on black identity in the Hudson River Valley. And all three are definitely New York City.

The heart of the quilt are clearly the threads that not only add to its symmetry but clearly captures the essence of the true intent of Mighty Change, Tall Within. Those threads (seven chapters in all) truly speak to black identity in the Hudson Valley, and add to the existing historiography such as my Long Hammering (1994) and On the Morning Tide (2003), as well as Sung Bok Kim's Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664-1775 (1978), and Thomas Wermuth's Rip Van Winkle's Neighbors: The Transformation of Rural Society in the Hudson River Vailey, 1720-1850 (2001). The two chapters on early black settlements--that of Edythe Ann Quinn ("The Kinship System in the Hills, An African American Community in Westchester, New York, in the Mid-Nineteenth Century") and Joan H. Geismar ("The Rise and Fall of Skunk Hollow")--are done with a personal touch and allow the reader to be a witness to the forging of a black identity and the etching of its presence into the environs of the Hudson River Valley. It is hoped that other such studies on long-forgotten black settlements in the valley will follow in the wake of these two. One that readily comes to mind is Eagles Nest in the mountains above Hurley, New York. The other chapters in this core are equally as interesting and revealing.

The weakness of the book, in my estimation, is the attempt at altering the Hudson Valley's configuration, and thus the use of broad brush strokes to compensate for a dearth of more contemporary research. The editor and the publisher might have searched more diligently for similar studies on immigrant Africans and West Indians in Hudson Valley cities like Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Kingston, Hudson, Liberty or even Catskill. Like New York City, they too are feeling the impact of the so-called "browning of America." As stated above, Mighty Change, Tall Within is an ambitious project. Perhaps in hindsight, a bit too ambitious?

J. Williams-Myers

SUNY-New Paltz