The Slavers of New York sticker campaign and guerrilla education initiative is the work of three independent activists, Ada Reso, Maria Robles, and Elsa Eli Waithe, who in 2020 began posting stickers that looked like street signs altered to name New York City’s early slaveowners. Using census and manumission records, newspaper listings, and in-depth historical research, they have identified over 200 government officials, businessmen, and wealthy farmers who owned or traded enslaved people from the 1600s through the early 1800s. For the group’s first sticker, Elsa notes, “Nostrand Ave. is seven miles long in Brooklyn. And … what’s really egregious…
