Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009

Brooklyn residents, officials walk to commemorate founding of village

Founded in 1829, settlement welcomed black men, women

About 20 residents and Brooklyn officials walked across the McKinley Bridge Saturday morning to honor the village's founding as one of the first black settlements in America.

The walk commemorated the early 1820s voyage by "Mother Baltimore" and 11 families, some free and some slaves, across the Mississippi River to settle in Illinois. In 1829, they established a settlement, called Freedom Village, that welcomed escaped slaves and free black men and women.

Although Brooklyn has suffered in recent decades from economic blight, it had one of the nation's first black mayors, said Roberta Obadan, of the Historical Society of Brooklyn, Ill.

"There's a lot of firsts here," Obadan said.

She helped organize the Freedom Walk, the first of its kind, to recognize the 180th anniversary of the village.

Obadan, who suffers from a fear of heights and a fear of bodies of water, shuffled across the bridge quickly, yelling, "Too much water, let's get a move on."

Obadan, who now lives in Houston, was raised in Brooklyn. She remembers being so scared when traveling across the McKinley Bridge as a child, that she hid in the floorboard of the car.

"Even today, I still have a fear of that bridge," she said.

Joe Galloy, an archaeologist with the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, said dishes and other remnants found in the northern part of Brooklyn date back to the 1830s and 1840s.

"We're helping to explore the town's history and using that to get the town on the National Register of Historic Places," he said.

Brooklyn is the only free black settlement to survive in the greater St. Louis area, and only one of a handful in the country, Galloy said.

The walk took place a day after the Juneteenth celebration of the freeing of the slaves.

Residents and village officials walked across the bridge, down Illinois 3 into Brooklyn and stopped at the Antioch Baptist Church for a social gathering.