Prithi Kanakamedala

Prithi Kanakamedala is a Professor of History at Bronx Community College/CUNY, and a faculty member in the M.A. in Liberal Studies Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. An active public historian here in the city, Prithi works with a range of cultural organizations. Her research looks at community-building, race, and citizenship in Brooklyn and New York’s 19th-century free Black communities. She is the author of Brooklynites: the Remarkable Story of the Free Black Communities that Shaped a Borough (NYU Press, 2024).

The DeGrasse Family of New York City

March 27, 2026 By Prithi Kanakamedala

Prof. Prithi Kanakamedala will present on their project examining the life of George DeGrasse and his family, who lived on land in New York City donated by Aaron Burr in the early nineteenth century.