Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
Local history Sunday topic with Rittner
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

The Greenmarket will provide food for thought as well as groceries this Sunday with the start of a new program at Proctors. In the basement of Robb Alley, amid the tables of farmers’ goods, historian Don Rittner will run a monthly series of roundtable discussions. His first topic was a natural — he will launch into the painful topic of the Capital District’s long-ago connections to the slave trade. Rittner will begin with a presentation of advertisements culled from old newspapers. A display will show 50 slave-for-sale ads and 50 ads seeking runaways. “You read a few hundred of these and you start getting pissed,” Rittner said. “You realize it wasn’t that long ago and it was here.” He’s reproduced the advertisements on a backdrop of the American flag, just to make sure no one misses his point. “That’s my statement for African-American History Month,” Rittner said. He has invited experts on the Underground Rail- road to speak as well.
    The topic of local slavery was chosen because February is Black History Month. Rittner will continue the roundtables with different topics each month.
    “Development issues, social issues — whatever’s on the hot burner of the community that month,” Rittner said.
    Some discussions will also revolve around the area’s history, in honor of this year’s bicentennial of the Schenectady County charter and quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s voyage.
    Rittner sees the roundtable as a community gathering point, a place to debate hot topics with well-informed speakers.
    “It’s a great way of getting educated,” he said. “You meet interesting people, you get to hear somebody........................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00904