The local NAACP president hopes students visit, and learn.

The local NAACP president hopes students visit, and learn.

 The exhibit has new information on the key role abolitionist Joseph Carpenter played in the Underground Railroad, and looks at New Rochelle's history of thriving Black neighborhoods, some of them bulldozed in the name of progress.

The exhibit takes a deep dive into the pivotal role Black New Rochelle families played in desegregating schools in the Northeast. The 1961 Taylor case helped end the gerrymandering of school zones to prevent integration, inspiring Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and other prominent African-Americans to relocate to New Rochelle.

"Our history is more than slavery.  Our history is a vast and beautiful and honorable history," said Minister Mark McLean of the New Rochelle NAACP. "We celebrate the best of our ancestors and the best of us."