We Be Griots

In this episode, host Esi Lewis sits down with Brenda Hush, a longtime New Paltz community member with a rich and varied life story. Brenda shares her upbringing in Chester, New York — a tight-knit, multigenerational neighborhood she describes as a "Norman Rockwell life" — and takes us through the many chapters of her journey.Brenda reflects on living in Virginia Beach and Lexington Park, Maryland during her first husband's Navy service in the Vietnam era, offering candid memories of navigating segregation in the South. She discusses her time as a student at SUNY New Paltz in the early seventies — including a formative class with the late Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis — and how she eventually returned to New Paltz permanently in 1996, purchasing Dr. Lewis's own condo after graduating with her sociology degree in 2000.Brenda's career path took her from 18 years as a metallurgist technician at IBM — where she successfully sued the company for racial discrimination and sexual harassment — to work as a youth counselor and corrections counselor at Harlem Valley Secure, Brookwood Secure, and Walkill Correctional Facility, a role she calls "the best job ever."Brenda also opens up about her Native American heritage as a member of the Ramapo Lenape Nation, her brother's role as a sub-chief, and the tribe's blocked effort to gain federal recognition — an effort reportedly opposed by Donald Trump over casino competition concerns.Throughout the conversation, Brenda touches on her faith and 25-plus years at an Episcopal church in New Paltz, her lifetime membership and chaplaincy with the local VFW post, her involvement with the Chester Alumni Association and Historical Society, and her work beautifying New Paltz through the Garden Club.We Be Griots is produced in collaboration with Episcopal Campus Ministries and the SUNY New Paltz Department of Digital Media and Journalism. Consulting Producer: Allison Moore | Audio Producer: Brett Barry | Production Interns: Sierra DeVito and Marietou Sacko | Host: Esi Lewis"We Be Griots" is the title of a poem by Ulster County's first Poet Laureate, Kate Hymes Flanagan.

In this episode, host Esi Lewis sits down with her friend and colleague Esther Val, a Financial Aid Advisor, adjunct faculty member, and staff member of the Scholars Mentorship Program (SMP) at SUNY New Paltz. The conversation is warm, honest, and wide-ranging — covering Esther's upbringing, her winding road through higher education, and the community she's built at New Paltz.Esther shares what it meant to grow up as a first-generation Haitian American in Brooklyn — never quite fitting into either the Haitian or American community, but finding belonging in church and music. Her mother's career as a home health aide and her father's entrepreneurial spirit (he founded a church in New Rochelle and a school for underprivileged students in Haiti) clearly shaped who she became: someone who loves people and shows up for them.Her path through higher education was anything but traditional. Esther was honest that it took her 13 years to earn both her bachelor's and master's degrees while raising young children — and that it was a single professor who stopped and asked "How are you really doing?" that turned everything around. That moment planted the seed for who she is today on campus.Since joining SUNY New Paltz in 2015, Esther has built a life well beyond her financial aid office. She teaches for the Scholars Mentorship Program, a program she describes with genuine pride — particularly its remarkable 93% student retention rate. She's also a faculty advisor for Voices of Unity (VOU), the campus gospel choir founded by Daryl Ware, who has since returned as director. This spring, VOU is planning a full production on the history of gospel music.The conversation also touches on changes Esther has witnessed at New Paltz over the years — the arrival of the university's first Black president, the student-led push to rename campus buildings, and her hope to see the Black student population grow beyond its current 6%. Looking ahead, she's quietly considering a move to full-time teaching as the next chapter of her career.Quote of the Episode "You have to be willing to be uncomfortable, and allow other people to be uncomfortable — because it's the only way real change is going to come about." — Esther ValAbout We Be Griots A Griot is a West African storyteller who preserves the oral traditions and histories of their people. Created by Esi Lewis, Executive Director of the Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis Center for History and Culture, We Be Griots shares local Black history told by Black people. Produced in collaboration with Episcopal Campus Ministries and the SUNY New Paltz Department of Digital Media and Journalism. Consulting Producer: Allison Moore | Audio Producer: Brett Barry | Production Interns: Sierra DeVito and Marietou Sacko.

In this episode, host Esi Lewis sits down with Ed Bell, a retired Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at SUNY New Paltz, where he worked for twenty years. Ed shares the remarkable story of how he came to New Paltz in 1967 with a singular mission: to build a track program from the ground up — recruiting athletes, purchasing equipment, and working with architects to construct the track itself. His teams went on to win city and regional championships and competed at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, making their mark in a SUNY system that was, at the time, overwhelmingly white.Ed reflects on the vibrant Black community that existed in and around New Paltz during his years there — one that included IBM professionals, educators, artists, and Greek life members — and how that community actively supported one another through organizations like Concerned Parents. He also shares memories of his close friendship with printmaker and artist Ben Wigfall, his first friend in New Paltz, and speaks warmly about raising his family in the area. Ed's life story stretches from a childhood split between a small all-white Illinois town and the bustling neighborhoods of Queens, to attending Tennessee State University during the era of segregation, to later traveling to Japan, France, and Cuba.Ed is also an accomplished poet — a passion rooted in his grandmother, a poet herself who read her work to him after his mother passed away when he was just two and a half years old. He shares the story of how a visit to the White House in the 1990s moved him to write a letter to President Clinton advocating for Black art in the permanent collection — a letter that directly contributed to the acquisition of the first work by an African American artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner, into that collection. Ed closes the episode with two powerful readings from his latest collection, Undulations, including the stirring poem "We're Still Here."

In this episode of We Be Griots, host Esi Lewis sits down with Kate Hymes Flanagan — Ulster County's first Poet Laureate, and author of the poem "We Be Griots," which inspired the name of this very podcast series. Kate shares her story of growing up in segregated New Orleans, her journey to New York for graduate school, and her long career in education at SUNY New Paltz and beyond.Kate also reflects on her path as a poet and her deep commitment to preserving the stories of Black communities in New Paltz. She closes with readings from two of her most powerful works, "Be Intentional" and "We Be Griots," reminding us that every person has a story worth telling — and that we are all capable of being griots ourselves.

In this episode, host Esi Lewis sits down with Heriberto Dixon, a scholar, educator, and longtime friend, for a wide-ranging conversation about identity, ancestry, and spiritual belonging. Dixon shares the story of his lifelong connection to Native American culture — rooted in a request from his mother decades ago to uncover their Native American ancestry — and recounts deeply personal experiences visiting the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, where he felt an inexplicable sense of home despite never having been there before. Drawing on Lakota tradition, Black Elk's vision, and the philosophy of "mitákuye oyásʼiŋ" (all my relations), Dixon reflects on what it means to live in a state of gratitude and to see all of life as interconnected.Dixon also explores the emerging field of African Native American identity — what anthropologists call ethnogenesis — tracing his own family's connections to the Muskogee Creek, the Nanticoke of Maryland, and possibly the Chickamauga Cherokee. He discusses how Indian slavery, largely erased from popular history, helps explain the deep intertwining of African and Native American ancestry, and pushes back against the idea that claiming Native heritage means denying African roots, arguing instead that identity is about addition, not subtraction.The conversation also touches on Dixon's distinguished academic career, including his time teaching strategic management at SUNY New Paltz, his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, and his belief in experiential, adult-centered education inspired by Paulo Freire. He shares warm memories of the late Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis, in whose honor this podcast is produced, and closes with a reflection on legacy, storytelling, and the power of finally seeing one's own vision realized.

In this rich and memory‑filled episode of We Be Griots, host Esi Lewis — executive director of the Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis Center for Black History and Culture — sits down with Pearl Lee, a beloved elder, educator, and longtime member of the New Paltz community whose life story spans the rural South, the early years of school desegregation, and more than half a century of local history."Nana Pearl" traces her journey from her childhood in Georgia — a world of segregated schools, well water, wood‑fired stoves, and tight‑knit family Sundays — to the moment she answered a newspaper ad that brought her north in 1964, just as the Civil Rights Act was reshaping the country. She recounts arriving in New Paltz as the district’s first Black teacher, navigating a new landscape with openness and humor, and finding a community that accepted her "as an individual."Across the conversation, she reflects on teaching health and physical education, coaching three sports every year, raising her children in the district, and witnessing the evolution of New Paltz from a small farm town to a more diverse — and sometimes more complicated — place. She shares vivid stories of early Main Street, apple pickers from the South, and the deep neighborliness that defined the town in the 1960s and ’70s.Nana Pearl also reflects on the legacy of Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis, their years as neighbors and “sisters in everything,” and the intertwined lives of their families — from bowling leagues and gymnastics lessons to shared celebrations and shared exhaustion. The episode moves gently between personal history and collective memory, touching on military service, motherhood, community care, and the generational distance between those who lived segregation and those who can hardly imagine it.What emerges is a portrait of a woman whose life bridges eras: from the segregated South to integrated classrooms, from potbelly stoves to modern New Paltz, from oral tradition to recorded history. Through her stories, Nana Pearl reminds us why preserving local Black history matters — and why these conversations must continue.

In this intimate and wide‑ranging conversation, host Esi Lewis, executive director of the Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis Center for Black History and Culture, sits down with her beloved “Ciesta,” Professor Ciesta Little-Quinn — educator, musician, choir director, and longtime pillar of Black cultural life in the Hudson Valley.Professor Quinn reflects on her journey from Detroit to New England to Poughkeepsie, tracing the experiences that shaped her as a teacher, performer, and advocate for Black music and Black history. From integrating a New Hampshire school district to teaching generations of students in Poughkeepsie and SUNY New Paltz, she shares stories filled with humor, resilience, and deep purpose.Together, Esi and Professor Little-Quinn explore the legacy of Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis, the evolution of the Black Studies Department at SUNY New Paltz, and the power of music — spirituals, Motown, gospel, and the sounds of the 1960s — as a vessel of memory, identity, and liberation.