"UNFORGETTING IN NEWBURGH" 02-04-2024 GUEST: JEAN-MARC SUPERVILLE - TELLS OF THE RECLAIMING OF A 19TH CENTURY "COLORED" CEMETERY.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in thefollowing programmer, Those are the speaker and
don't necessarily represent those of the stationit's staff, management or ownership. Good
morning, you'll find me out beatingthe poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonards and
I'm the Poet Goal. And we'reon the air this morning with Jean Marks
Superville. And before we get toJean Marv, we're gonna go right to
the poet Goal for her weekly poemPrayer Incannotation goal. Please let it roll,

(00:25):
Okay, Peter, Well, I'mgoing to bring back the drum beat
rhythm. I can you know,so that we don't forget that. Please
do the drum beats rhythm that tellsmy heart. I can the drum beats
rhythm that tells my heart. Ican the drum beats to rhythm that tells
my heart. I can the drumbeats rhythm that tells my heart. I
can. I can be like HarrietTubman running, but I'm not running.

(00:48):
I'm creating, not escaping. Shegave me that option years ago with her
sacrifice, so I may grow upand walk on water like Christ because he
is so dope and nice displaying outstandingpossibilities every where. Tap me on the
shoulders, pointed me to the starsand said, there are the stairs with
faith the sides of a mustard seed. You can move mountains, built igloos
on desert, turn rain drops intobeads of gold, and create the greatest

(01:11):
stories that will ever be told.I'm a descendant of the keenest mathematicians.
Did you not know that? Recognizethey figured the equations, built pyramids from
a grain of sand, set atop of transmitter, send to me messages
through the rhythm of the beat ofthe drums, telling my heart. I
can the drum beats rhythm that tellsmy heart. I can the drum beats
rhythm that tells my heart. Ican, I can? I can the

(01:32):
drum beats the rhythm that tells ourhearts. We can amen to that one
too. And so yeah, beforewe put the mics on, Jean Marche
was talking about the energy that goesinto performance and some and you said,
goals really on fire. This weekhit a performance and we got a little
spark right there. Well, we'relooking forward to this weekend, Saturday,

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February thirds performance where I'm sure sparksare gonna fly this past weekend on the
On Saturday. Last Saturday at thegallery, we had Gwen lasterntrauwassic violinists yes
and her husband Damon Banks, anda quartet with Todd Eisler and Patrick Jones
and Goal. I was there,Yeah, I was in the audience.

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I was in the audience soaking itall in and getting inspired. I was
so inspired I went out and boughtmyself a ukilate in Beacon. Yes,
I did take lessons. Wow,Jamal, maybe I could give us a
sense of what your roles and allthis. So the events that are happening
at an Street Gallery are all dedicatedto what was once known as Newburgh's Colored

(02:38):
burial Ground. If you're driving offof eighty four and you're heading into Newburg,
you'll probably be on Robinson Avenue andwhen you hit Broadway, right at
the corner, there's a big,big building. It's the municipal Courthouse.
And before it was the courthouse,it was a schoolhouse. And before it
was the schoolhouse, it was aburial ground, and it was what they
call the colored burial Ground. Sowe're honoring the hunt undred and fifteen who

(03:00):
were disinterred back in two thousand andeight, and who are waiting to be
reburied soon in the city of Newburgh. So let me get it gets just
straight. I mean, verst ofall, it's a lot. I know,
it's a lot. Yeah. Westarted with the word color. I
mean I've old enough to know whatthat's not. The color is what used

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to be a polite term for youknow, whole black people, correct,
And I guess it was never reallythat polite. It always had a tinge
to it from what I could tell. But the buried ground for black people,
correct. I was in Newburgh andthe people, I can say,
the residents, the people buried weredug up. Correct, So they're going

(03:46):
to be buried again in that Burgh. That's right, that's correct. So
in two thousand and eight, whenthe schoolhouse is being converted into the current
courthouse, well when the shovel hitsthe ground and you find you know,
ancestors rising up with all their burialremains and you know artifacts, and shout

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out to Kenneth Nystrom Gotor. KennethNistriam is the professor at Sunny Newpaultz who
was the lead archaeologist bioarchaeologists who's preparedfour hundred pages of study of the bones,
the osteology, the teeth. Youwere talking about, Dentzel hygien,
because it's he tell us a story. The bones tell us his story,

(04:26):
the artifacts tell us his story.And even though the historical narrative will tell
you that there is no way ofknowing, there are no way, there's
no way of attributing any names tothose particular burials. Even though there's no
way of knowing, I think aswe as artists have a job to invent
ways, and I think that thatis the purpose, and that is the

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drive behind the work, whether it'sthrough music, poetry, historians, archaeology,
there's a story to be told,and I think it's that that's I
make it my job to make thoseuntold stories told. And you may say
there's no way to knowing yet correct. So most modern historians will agree that

(05:11):
history is not written by the renowned, that history. Most of history is
written by those we call nameless,not named, to be named, once
named. And yes, very muchpart of the process is attributing names that
we can speculate of those who couldbe buried there. And to my understanding,
there are still in our conversation fromlast week. There's still some bodies

(05:33):
that actually cannot be removed because they'reholding up the structure. So now when
we say that black people have beenthe foundation of cities and culture and much
of what we understand America to be, this is a very concrete example.
Absolutely, they are one and thesame with the building and paraphrasing from the

(05:56):
archaeology report, but to remove themwith structurally compromise the building. So they
are one and the same. Youknow, I made it my you know
life, you have the whole role, hopefully a straight one. And so
I really am focusing on the yearsof eighteen thirty two to eighteen sixty seven.
Those are the years in which theburial ground was thought to be active.

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So your interests come right after theend of the Civil War. So
there's a really interesting overlap between theyears in which the cemetery or the burial
ground was used and the end ofwhat we call the abolition of slavery,
the gradual abolition of slavery in NewYork State. Can I give you a

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little pop quiz, Pete in mind, when was slavery abolished in New York
State? Oh, it's taken thisexample for luckily. Yeah, pretty comfortable,
very good. Okay, Now Idon't know, I know New York
State was a place that had alot of slavery, very much around zero.

(07:01):
I don't know the answer to thatquestion. Well, I just wanted
to quote since there is no definitiveanswer. There's actually it's actually a trick
question. But according to the seventeenninety nine Gradual Abolition Act of Slavery,
and I'm good to get a quotefrom it so those folks who don't know
it verbatim can have it. Allchildren born of enslaved mothers after July third,

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seventeen ninety nine shall be deemed free. Nevertheless, it is always a
clause. That was a clause.Nevertheless, such child that was deemed free,
we were just mentioning such child shallbe the servant of the legal proprietor
of his or her mother until suchservant male shall arrive at the age of

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twenty eight years and a female twentyfive. So when we say that slavery
was abolished officially in New York Statein eighteen twenty seven, that's New York
State's emancipation Day. The answer isactually more complicated in that And you made
and you made a complicated beau.Let me go right to pold. Hold
on to that thought. If you'rejust tuning in, you're listening to finding

(08:09):
out with Pete and the poet goldand I'm the poet Golden. We're here
having a wonderful conversation about the groundfrom the ground from the ground up with
Jean Mark supervilled Sovad the curator.Yeah, Jean Monk, I wanted to
go to one word you used beforethat might have gotten to what I consider
an essence of art right now.I was talking about a burial ground for

(08:31):
black people who are are so faranonymous, we don't know who they are,
and you want to tell their storiescorrect And you said, okay,
there's there's not such a historical datafor it. But then you said,
but as artists, we have theresponsibility to invent. Be invents is an
interesting word because it sounds like it'sartificial in a sense that I'm made up

(08:56):
or not true, And I'm askingyou, yes, is my interpretation that
were to recreate to tell a deepertruth? Maybe then the facts shoun come
up with, or it can goto a level that doesn't have you know,
facts you can match but it willresurrect the truth of the burial ground

(09:18):
in a way that it will beimportant to all of us. There are
all truths, I absolutely believe,Yes, the truths are in many.
The truth is the is the historicaltradition. The truth is also the oral
tradition. You know, we tendto think of the truth in sort of

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very very narrow ways. The truthis the Newburg City Almshouse records. Because
what you want to know about whatwas known as the colored burial ground,
you should you have to also knowabout the Newburg Almshouse that operated the burial
grounds for those who could not affordto bury their own. If you think
about it, there was a lotof a lot of a lot of poverty

(10:05):
in the late nineteenth century. Andthe better word for poverty in this case
is miseration. It was it wasmade to be a whole separate class of
people who were reintroduced to what scholarslike David Gelman called a reinvention of slavery

(10:28):
into what was called servitude, slaverybeing developed entitlement. It's entitlement to servitude.
David Gelman, he wrote a book, a very very thorough study.
It's called emancipating New York, andwhat New York state legislators had to do
in the early nineteenth century and andand and beyond was to convince slaveholders that

(10:52):
they weren't taking their property away.It said, it's it's not about property.
What you really you don't want tohave to You know, you don't
own these people. You don't wantto have to feed them and clothe them
and take care of them when they'reinfirm and aged and sick. What you
want, you, slaveholders, isentitlement to servitude. So what happens in

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eighteen twenty seven when children are indenturedis this state takes in those children who
would otherwise be known as abandoned andbecome wards of the state. What happens
when you become ward of the state, Well, the state can hire you
out as an indenture and split theprofits, very often with the very same

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former enslavers that the newly emancipated noware working for. This is what David
calls David Gaevon calls reparations not forthe enslaved, but for the former enslavers.
And the word misery misery. Alot of historians, like A City

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Hartman, talk of the way inwhich you know it's it's not an accident.
You know, there are precedents.I think of Jordan Neely, for
example, who's coming up in thenews again because his murder is on trial.
Why was he murdered? Why washe deemed a threat? Why is
blackness associated with criminality? Why ispoverty associated with criminality? These are not

(12:22):
accidents, right, right, right? Actually, And we were sharing a
story about Maria King. Okay,so so part of what you're what you
were saying, you know, everyword this is due to me. I
don't know, So please go withthe conference that I got to hear it.

(12:45):
Sure, sure, So part ofwhat you're saying about the ways of
knowing, you know, inventing waysof knowing, is also doing a little
bit of research. Right, So, we don't know. We don't have
a cemetery record of those who wereburied there, but we do have Almshouse.
We have the Newburgh's Almshouse Commissioner's Examinationlogbook from eighteen fifty three to eighteen

(13:07):
fifty eight that a fellow named Mikevan Dervoord shout out to Mike and Ashley
be a genie who are working onSPOMA the sacred place of our ancestors over
in Montgomery, another African burial ground. And the job of naming the nameless
sometimes falls into speculation. You know, we may not know, but we
can guess, and we could comeup with some very close guesses. And

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so in that examination log book areall the folks quote unquote colored folks who
presented themselves for arms for relief,for aid and they were examined. They
were asked were they married, werethey not married? Where they did they
have children any quote unquote bastard children. You know, it was a very
thorough examination to understand what your causeof poverty. And I was going to

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talk about Maria King, but Iwanted to mention another name that's I've just
been obsessed with is Phoebe. PhoebePhoebe Colden. In eighteen fifty three,
Phoebe Colden visited the Newberg's Almshouse.And you can see right here, Peter,
you could read yourself. The firstline of her examination record was imported

(14:16):
from Africa. Now I prefer theterm born, but this will tell you
that this is the person. Herfirst language probably wasn't English, And it
says that when she visited the Almshousein eighteen fifty three. She thinks she
is one hundred and four years old. You see I'm quoting here right,
one hundred and four? What lifedid? How many things did that woman?

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See? She had eleven children,the oldest of which is eighty you
know, I mean this is awhole biography. And the person had a
very good handwriting too. The examiner. There's a kind of horrible beauty in
which yes, reservation is being yes. And what you just stuck at for
me in the language of the terminologyimported yes, like traded goods no.

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And we you want to go wecan? We can? We can go
there. Not only was she quoteunquote imported, as you say, she
was sold to a man named CodwalladerColden Now if you know who Cordwallader cold
and former New York City mayor andpresident of the Manumission Society and also owns

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owned at the time or several thousandacres and what was called Coldenham, sort
of right between Newburgh and Montgomery today. Wow, before close to her people
know, we know who we are. We might be speaking with the smartest
man we have had on the Ifyou're just tuning in you're listening to find

(15:46):
it out with Pete the poet Goldand I'm the poet Gold. And we
are here with Jean Marks Superville,so Bad the curator. From the ground
up. You got it from theground up. That's how we're describing the
way in which these ancestors have risenup absolutely enough to tell us their story.
So let's let's talk about this seriesthat you have going on, you

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know, from coming up from thisSaturday on story. It's ann Street Gallery
at Anstree Gallery. Okay, Sofirst I just need to give a shout
out to those who have given usthe blessing I think that we needed to
even begin this work, which ismembers of the Newburgh Colored Burial Ground Committee,
in particular Gabrielle Burton Hill, whohas been steadfast you know, I

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couldn't ask for more of an allyin the work that we are doing.
The first events started out in frontof the courthouse just as a form of
gathering, a form of recognition ofwhat this site represents. The site will
eventually be it has been nominated andis on the National Register of Historic Places,

(16:52):
so look out for that eventually tohappen. But in the gallery,
as we transition to you know monthswhere it's probably a little better to gather
in side with the little coffee andtreats. And we have black blah blah
Every Saturday from two to four pm. We'll be hosting artists, historians,
poets like yourself. The inimitable EdwinTorres will be with us and Ulster County

(17:18):
poet Laureate Kate Hymes on the Februarythird. This Saturday, on the tenth,
we're assembling an interfaith panel in Newburghand the local BHA Beacon Hebrew Alliance
to talk about traditional burial practices.February seventeenth, we're still locking it in.
Doctor Mera Armstead, fantastic historian.She will tell you the story from

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professor at Bard College. She'll tellyou all the history about James Brown,
the James Brown you need to know. James F. Brown, a gardener
who worked for thirty years. Blackman, formerly a runaway from Maryland,
who ended up in the Home ofthe Planks and was a master gardener,
rubbing shoulders with Andrew Jackson Downing andHenry Winthrop's sergeant. I mean, she
will tell you, and I'm partof her talk. I think is going

(18:08):
to be about the way in whichhe also cared for others as an enfranchised
man, a man who owns ablack man, who owned property which you
needed to to vote in eighteen they'reall the way up to eighteen sixty five.
You need to own two hundred andfifty dollars worth of property as a
quote unquote colored person to be ableto colored man, to be able to
vote. James F. Brown usedhis money to purchase the cemetery. Cemetery

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that's on corner of North Walnut Streetand Verplank and Beacon. Today, you
shouldn't have a familiar familiarity with enoughformal history. So are you trained in
history? Or you surely have agrassroots, a vibe and energy. I
like to think of myself as myjob begins where historians end. You know,

(18:55):
historians don't like they'd like it toscience, you know, they like
to treat it as such, andthey want to be able to not verge
into what they called speculation. Iam a speculator. I think of myself
as an unfinished business professional. Well, I'm going to give you a little
footnote. I don't know an awfullot of history, but I studied a
lot of Greek philosophy and Thucidities,who was one of the considered one of

(19:18):
the really great historians in all ofhistory. The city has wrote a book
called the Peloponnesian Was, and thePeloponnesian Was go much more along the lines
that you do, in other words, through Cidities. He's got all the
facts, and when the facts aren'treally illuminating the truth, he makes stuff
up, I mean, and it'sa creation or recreation, and it's accurate.

(19:45):
He assumes that he knows what peopleare thinking, and he's right.
So it's not It's not just theGreeks. I think anyone who understands that
ancestry transcends our very specialized notion ofbiology and DNA, that especially those with
broken ancestries, you know, needto find ways to contact, to connect

(20:08):
with those ancestors like you do sowell. I mean, well that's you
know, that's the importance of thegriod, you know, to understand what
the original story was, have someconcept of that, but also to be
able to take that history and moveit forward, you know. And how
do you move it forward? Youconnect the dots, and some dots in
some ways are predictable you know,you can look at it history and go,

(20:32):
okay, well, this is goingto happen in this this pattern,
I can pretty much predict what's goingto happen next. And you put that
into the story. And not everyoneknows the word riot that is, that
is a traditional word for the storytellerin African tradition. That's right, that's
right, and you fit into thattraditions. You can see it yourself that
way. Yes, I've learned toown it. I've learned to own it.

(20:55):
Before I was like, you know, because you have so much respect
for griots and your ancestors and thestories that are being passed on. And
when someone comes along and says,well you're a great you know, you
first kind of go, no,that's for my I learned. I learned
from these individuals, you know,and so so you it took a while
for me to sort of say,okay, yeah, that's sure of the

(21:15):
word poet too, right, Poetimpliedly a sort of wise person, and
that can be a little uncomfortable.And I didn't give myself that name.
Actually, you know, that's adifferent story, you know, I know,
you know, Linda Martin Reid onetime at a dinner party when I
was first starting out some years ago. Uh, someone came came to me

(21:36):
and said, what's your name?And I always went by Gold from a
child, and so she immediately justtook me by the arm and said,
oh, that's poet Gold. AndI said, wow, that that I
feel that, I feel that,and so I owned and she was executive
director of M. Hussin's. Yeah, I had a sense of art and
whatnot, which a little more senseof who you were in the last two

(21:57):
and a half minutes. You haveyour historical curiosity, you have your own
jury, yes, and give usa little more sense of what you saw
about So I, like I said, I'm an artist more primarily concerned with
telling untold stories. I live inplataquill In out Noster County or Puerto Rico.

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It's also known I live ten minutesaway from the birthplace of Sojourn the
Truth, and if you drive through, you won't you won't see a sign,
a plaque of nothing. So Imade it to speak Spanish. I
I I get spoken Spanish too,a lot I got. I got a
few salamakums in the middle too.I'm like, yeah, it's one of

(22:42):
those I guess racially ambiguous is probablythe So, you know, I have
been identified as black in this country, and I feel like it is my
job to find out what that meansand what the history and what does it
tell us. And I find thatI'm also gratified by all the allies that

(23:08):
are willing to put themselves also onthe line and ask those questions. And
I'm just really grateful that the gallerydirector Alison McNulty and Lisa Silverstone at Safe
Harbors of the Hudson's sort of parentorganization of the of the gallery, have
you know, you know, trustedme to and and trusted in the idea

(23:30):
that this space could be one thatwould honor people and gather people. And
I think we're starting to get someof the I don't want to get you
We only okay, But I feelthat with all you verve and straight talking,
you're also avoidings of them. Thebeginning of actually ishmael Is translates into

(23:57):
Hebrew as he who listens to God. So I have been listening and hopefully
hearing my ancestry, which mostly comesfrom my mother who's from Trinidad. At
the age of two, I spenta lot of time with my grandmother there.
I've been trying to channel her alot and ancestry in general, and

(24:18):
my sister as well, you know, and my condolences to you. I
should have started out by saying foryour sister, because I've been there and
I know that feeling of what itis to see someone transition. And you
know this, this this project isis really all about that, asking those
questions about you know, where dowhere do we come from? And where

(24:40):
do we go? And how dowe honor the history of and where from
right and rising from you? Yougave me something going to perform on Saturday.
Where do we go from here?Thank you so much. I'm trying
to figure out which I was goingto do. To our listeners, thank
you so much for listening. Listen, I'm really going to say to you,
you really want to go to anstreetgallery this co Savday. Those of

(25:00):
you who listen on the podcast onFriday and just have the opportunity to the
month of February to meet Jean Mark, an amazing human being. Thank you
for the work that you do.Thank you to our listeners than for listening
to finding out Pete the Poe ofGold