Syracuse African Americans abounds with hard work, forbearance, determination, strength, and spirit. It depicts through photographs the heritage of this upstate New York African American community. The story spans several centuries, beginning when escaped slaves made salt here and sold it to the Native Americans. Once a hotbed of abolitionism, Syracuse was the site of a protest against the Fugitive Slave Law. Later, as the city became a manufacturing center, its black population increased.

Barbara Sheklin Davis, whose photographic exhibits have chronicled the Syracuse African American and Jewish communities, is a professor emerita at Onondaga Community College and the principal of Syracuse Hebrew Day School and Epstein High School of Jewish Studies.