The Noble Maritime Collection Museum invited award-winning author and mariner Dr. Jeffrey Bolster to give a talk on Saturday.
Bolster lectured on African American sailors in the 19th century and the role they played in the Port of New York and Brooklyn.
Officials with the event tell us, the story of black sailors often is one that goes untold.
"They were sort of hungry to hear these stories about men of color in the past, how they were contributing to the shipping industry, but really making themselves and making the African Diaspora and contributing to that freedom struggle for a long time," Dr. Jeffrey Bolster, Professor, University of New Hampshire said.
More than 25 percent of New York’s pre Civil War maritime workers were African American.