Honoring a Very Early New Yorker →
It only took 399 years, but New York City is finally celebrating Afro-Latino Juan Rodriguez as its first merchant and non-Native American resident of Lenapehoking (New York City)!
For more info: African American National Biography, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
“Juan (Jan) Rodriguez” by Christopher Paul Moore, Senior Researcher, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
