Feb 07, 2008 — February is Black History Month, a time to focus on African-American pride and those who changed the world. A local historian is researching the lives of a number of African-Americans who lived in the North Country in the 19th century. Bryan Thompson says there was a strong abolitionist movement in the region before the Civil War, and both slaves and free African Americans lived in the North Country in the early 1800s. Todd Moe has more. Thompson will give a talk, Amnesia: Abolitionists and Black Pioneers of the St. Lawrence, this Sunday (10:30 am) at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Canton.