Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. You'll find me out beating the polic Gold.
I'm Peter Leonards and I'm the poet Gold and we're
on the air this morning is Jean Marks Superville. And
before we get to Jean Mark, we're gonna go right
to the poet Goal for her weekly poem prayer incantation Gold.
Please let it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Roll, Okay, Peter, Well, I'm going to bring back the
drum beats to rhythm. I can you know, so that
we don't forget that. Please do the drum beats rhythm
that tells my heart. I can the drum beats rhythm
that tells my heart. I can the drum beats to
rhythm that tells my heart. I can the drum beats
to rhythm that tells my heart. I can. I can
(00:33):
be like Harriet Tubman running, but I'm not running. I'm creating,
not escaping. She gave me that option years ago with
her sacrifice, so I may grow up and walk on
water like Christ because He is so dope and nice,
displaying outstanding possibilities everywhere. Tap me on the shoulders, pointed
me to the stars and said, there are the stairs
with faith. The sides of a mustard seed you can
(00:54):
move mountains, build igloos on deserts, turn rain drops into
beads of gold, and create the greatest stories that will
ever be told. I'm a descendant of the keenest mathematicians.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Did you not know that?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Recognize they figured the equations, built pyramids from a grain
of sand, set the top of transmitter, sending me messages
through the rhythm of the beat of the drums, telling
my heart. I can the drum beats, the rhythm that
tells my heart. I can the drum beats, rhythm that
tells my heart. I can, I can? I can the
drum beats the rhythm that tells our hearts.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We can amen to that one too. And so before
we put the mics on, Jean miche was talking about
the energy that goes into performance and some you said,
goals really on fire weekhait of performance, and we got
a little spark right there.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, we're looking forward to this weekend, Saturday, February thirds
performance where I'm sure sparks are going to fly this
past weekend on the On Saturday last Saturday at the Gallery,
we had Gwen Lastertrawassaic violinists Yes and their husband Damon
Banks and a quartet with Todd Eisler and Patrick Owns
(02:00):
and the goal.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I was there, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Was in the audience. I was in the audience, soaking
it all in and getting inspired. I was so inspired
I went out and bought myself a ukilaatee in Beacon. Yes,
I did take lessons.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Wow, Jamal, maybe you could give us a sense of
what your roles and all this.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So the events that are happening at an Street Gallery
are all dedicated to what was once known as Newburgh's
Colored burial Ground. If you're driving off of eighty four
and you're heading into Newburg, you'll probably be on Robinson Avenue,
and when 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
(02:42):
it was a schoolhouse, it was a burial ground, and
it was what they call the colored burial ground. So
we are honoring the one hundred and fifteen who were
disinterred back in two thousand and eight and who are
waiting to be reburied soon in the city of Newburgh.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So let me gets a straight Yeah, I mean verstual
a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I know, it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah. We started with the word color. I mean I've
old enough to know what that it's not. The color
is what used to be a polite term for you know,
whole black people, correct, And I guess it was never
really that polite. It always had a tinge to it
from what I could tell. But the buried ground for
black people, correct, was in Newburgh and the people, I
(03:29):
can say, the residents, the people buried were dug up.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Correct, So they're going to be buried again in that
That's right, that's correct. So in two thousand and eight,
when the schoolhouse is being converted into the current courthouse,
well when the shovel hits the ground and you find
you know, ancestors rising up with all their burial remains
(03:53):
and you know artifacts, and shout out to Kenneth Nice Stream.
Doctor Kenneth Ice Stream is the professor at Sunny Newpaul
who is the lead archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, who's prepared four hundred
pages of study of the bones, the osteology, the teeth.
You're talking about dental hygiene, because it's he tell us
a story. The bones tell us his story, The artifacts
(04:16):
tell us his story. And even though the historical narrative
will tell you that there is no way of knowing,
there are no way, there's no way of attributing any
names to those particular burials. Even though there's no way
of knowing, I think as we as artists have a
job to invent ways, and I think that that is
the purpose and that is the drive behind the work,
(04:38):
whether it's through 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 those untold stories told.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And you may say there's no way to knowing, yet correct.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So most modern historians will agree that 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 name. And yes, very much part of the
process is attributing names that we can speculate of those
(05:16):
who could be buried there.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And to my understanding, there are still in our conversation
from last week, there's still some bodies that actually cannot
be removed because they're holding up the structure.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So now, when we say that black people have been
the 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 the same with the building and
paraphrasing from the archaeology report, but to remove them with
structurally compromise the building. So they are one and the same.
(05:51):
You know, I've made it my you know life, you
have the whole row, hopefully a straight one. And so
I really focusing on the years of eighteen thirty two
to eighteen sixty seven. Those are the years in which
the burial ground was thought to be active.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So your answers come right after the end of the
Civil War.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
So there's a really interesting overlap between the years in
which the cemetery or the burial ground was used and
the end of what we call the abolition of slavery,
the gradual abolition of slavery in New York State. Can
I give you a little pop quiz, pete in mind,
when was slavery abolished in New York State? Oh, it's
(06:33):
taken this example for.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Luckily. Yeah, pretty comfortable, very good. Okay, Now, I don't know.
I know New York State was a place that had
a lot of slavery, very much ground zero, And I
don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, I just wanted to quote since there is no
definitive answer. There's actually it's actually a trick question. But
according to the seventeen ninety nine Gradual Abolition Act of Slavery,
and I'm good to get a quote from it, so
those folks who don't know it verbatim can have it.
All children born of enslaved mothers after July third, seventeen
(07:14):
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 shall
be the servant of the legal proprietor of his or
her mother until such servant male shall arrive at the
age of twenty eight years and a female twenty five.
(07:38):
So when we say that slavery was abolished officially in
New York State in eighteen twenty seven, that's New York
State's emancipation Day. The answer is actually more complicated than that.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And you made a complicated but let me go right, Poet.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Gold, hold on to that thought. If you're just tuning in,
you're listening to finding out with Pete and the poet goal.
I'm the poet Golden. We're here having a wonderful conversation
about the ground from the ground from the ground up
with Jean Mark supervilled Sovad, the curator.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, Jean Monk, I wanted to go to one word
you used before that might have gotten to what I
consider an essence of art right now. I was talking
about a burial ground for black people who are so
far anonymous, we don't know who they are, and you
want to tell their stories correct And you said, okay,
(08:29):
there's not such historical data for it. But then you said,
but as artists, we have the responsibility to invent invents.
Is an interesting work because it sounds like it's artificial
in a sense that I'm made up or not true,
And I'm asking you is my interpretation of that word
(08:52):
to recreate to tell a deeper truth. Maybe then the
facts can come up with or it can go to
a level doesn't have you know facts you can match,
but it will resurrect the truth of the burial ground
in a way that it will be important to all
of us.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
There are all truths, absolutely believe, yes, the truths are
in many The truth is the is the historical tradition.
The truth is also the oral tradition. You know, we
tend to think of the truth in sort of very
very narrow ways. The truth is the Newburg City Almshouse records.
(09:36):
Because what you want to know about what was known
as the colored burial ground, you should you have to
also know about the Newburg Almshouse that operated the burial
grounds for those who could not afford to bury their own.
If you think about it, there was a lot of
a lot of a lot of poverty in the late
nineteenth century. And the better word for poverty in this
(09:59):
case is miseration. It was it was made to be
a whole separate class of people who were reintroduced to
what scholars like David Gelman call a reinvention of slavery
into what was called servitude. Yeah, slavery being developed entitlement.
(10:26):
It's entitlement to servitude. David Gelman, he wrote a book,
a very very thorough study. It's called Emancipating New York.
And what New York state legislators had to do in
the early nineteenth century and and and and beyond was
to convince slaveholders that they weren't taking their property away.
It said, it's it's not about property. What you really
(10:48):
you don't want to have to You know, you don't
own these people. You don't want to have to feed
them and clothe them and take care of them when
they're infirm and aged and sick. What you want, you slaveholders,
is entitlement to servitude. So what happens in eighteen twenty
seven when children are indentured is this state takes in
(11:11):
those children who would otherwise be known as abandoned and
become 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 the profits very often
with the very same former enslavers that the newly emancipated
(11:31):
now are working for. This is what David calls David
Gavin calls reparations not for the enslaved, but for the
former enslavers.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
And the word misery misery.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
A lot of historians, like a Cedia Hartman, talk of
the way in which 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 the news again because
his murder is on trial. Why was he murdered? Why
was he deemed a threat. Why is blackness associated with criminality?
(12:08):
Why is poverty associated with criminality? These are not accidents, right, right, right?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Actually, and we were sharing a story about Maria King.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Okay, so so part of what.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
You're what you were saying, you want you know, every
word of this is due to me. Okay, I don't know.
I started reading yea, so please go with the conference
that I got to hear it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Sure, sure, So part of what you're saying about the
ways of knowing, you know, inventing ways of 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 were buried there, but we do have Almshouse. We
have the Newburgh's Almshouse Commissioner's Examination log book from eighteen
(12:55):
fifty three to eighteen fifty eight that a fellow named
Mike van der Voord shout out to Mike and Ashley
be a genie who are working on Spoma, 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,
(13:16):
and we could come up with some very close guesses.
And so in that examination log book are all 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, were they not married? Where they
did they have children any quote unquote bastard children? You know,
(13:37):
it was a very thorough examination to understand what your
cause of poverty. And I was going to talk about
Maria King, but I wanted to mention another name that's
I've just been obsessed with.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Is Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Colden. In eighteen fifty three, Phoebe
Colden visited the Newberg's Almshouse. And you can see right
here period you could read yourself. The first line of
her examination record was imported from Africa. Now I prefer
the term born, but this will tell you that this
is the person. Her first language probably wasn't English. And
(14:14):
it says that when she visited the almshouse in eighteen
fifty three, she thinks she.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Is one hundred and four years old. You see, I'm
quoting here right one hundred and four? What life did?
How many things did that woman?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
See?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
She had eleven children, the oldest of which is eighty.
You know, I mean this is a whole biography.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And the person had very good handwriting too.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
The examiner. There is a kind of horrible beauty in
which yesseration is being yes.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And what you stuck at for me in the language
of the terminology imported yes, yeah, like traded goods.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
No, and you want to go we can, we can
go there. Not only was she quote unquote imported as
you say, she was sold to a man named Codwallader Colden.
Now if you know who Codwallerder Colden, former New York
City mayor and president of the Manumission Society, and also
(15:14):
owns owned at the time or several thousand acres and
what was called Coldenham, so the right between Newburgh and
Montgomery today.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Wow, before close to her, you.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Don't have to let the people know who we know
who we are speaking.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We might be speaking with the smartest man we had
on the absolu.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
If you're just tuning in, you're listening to find it
out with Peting the poet Gold and I'm the poet
Gold and we are here with Jean Marks Superville Solvat,
the curator from the ground up.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
You got it from the ground up. That's how we're
describing the way in which these ancestors have risen up
absolutely to tell us their story.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So let's let's talk about this series that you have
going on, you know, from coming up from this Saturday on.
So sorry, it's a street gallery.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
At anstreet gallery. Okay. So first I just need to
give a shout out to those who have given us
the blessing I think that we needed to even begin
this work, which is members of the Newburgh Colored Burial
Ground Committee, in particular Gabrielle Burton Hill, who has been
steadfast you know, I couldn't ask for more of an
ally in the work that we are doing. The first
(16:26):
events started out in front of the courthouse just as
a form of gathering, a form of recognition of what
this site represents. The site will eventually be it. It
has been nominated and is on the National Register of
Historic Places, so look out for that eventually to happen.
But in the gallery as we transition to you know
months where it's probably a little better to gather inside
(16:49):
with a little coffee and treats, and we have blah
blah blah every Saturday from two to four pm. We'll
be hosting artists, historians, poets like yourself. The inimitable Edwin
Torres will be with us and Ulster County poet Laureate
Kate Hymes on the February third. This Saturday, on the tenth,
(17:14):
we're assembling an interfaith panel in Newburgh and 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 professor
at Bard College. She'll tell you all the history about
(17:36):
James Brown, the James Brown you need to know. James F. Brown,
a gardener who worked for thirty years, black man, formerly
a runaway from Maryland, who ended up in the Home
of the Planks and was a master gardener, rubbing shoulders
with Andrew Jackson Downing and Henry Winthrop's sergeant. I mean,
she will tell you, and I'm part of her talk
(17:57):
I think is going to be about the way in
which he also cared for others as an enfranchised man,
a man who owned a black man who owned property
which you needed to to vote in eighteen through all
the way up to eighteen sixty five. You need to
own two hundred and fifty dollars worth of property as
a quote unquote colored person to be able to colored man,
to be able to vote. James F. Brown used his
(18:20):
money to purchase the cemetery. Cemetery that's on corner of
North Walnut Street and Verplank and Beacon.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Today, you shouldn't have a familiar familiarity with enough formal history.
So are you trained in history or you surely have
a grassroots, a vibe and energy.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I like to think of myself as my job begins
where historians end. You know, historians don't like they'd like
it to science. You know, they like to treat it
as such, and they want to be able to not
verge into what they call speculation. I am a speculator.
I think of myself as an unfinished business professional.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Let me give you a little footnote. I don't know
an awful lot of history, but I studied a lot
of Greek philosophy and thucidities. Who was one of them
considered one of the really great historians in all of history.
The city has wrote a book called The Peloponnesian Was
and the Peloponnesian was go much more along the lines
that you do, in other words, through cidities. He's got
(19:22):
all the facts, and when the facts aren't really illuminating
the truth, he makes stuff up. I mean, and it's
a creation or recreation and it's accurate. He assumes that
he knows what people are thinking, and he's right.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
So it's not It's not just the Greeks. I think
anyone who understands that ancestry transcends our very specialized notions
of biology and DNA, that especially those with broken ancestries,
you know, need to find ways to contact, to connect
with those ancestors like you do.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I mean, well that's you know, that's the importance
of the Greod, you know, to understand what the original
story was, have some concept of that, but also to
be able to take that history and move it forward,
you know. And how do you move it forward? You
connect the dots, and some dots in some.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Ways are predictable. You know.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
You can look at it history and go, okay, well
this is going to happen in this this pattern, I
can pretty much predict what's going to happen next, and
you put that into the story.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
And not everyone knows the word.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
That is.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That is a traditional word for the storyteller in African tradition.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
That's right, and you fit into that tradition, do you
You can see it of yourself that way.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yes, I've learned to own it. I've learned to own it.
Before I was like, you know, because because you have
so much respect for griots and your ancestors and the
stories that are being passed on. And when someone comes
along and says, well, you're a griod, you know, you
first kind of go, no, that's for my So I
learned from these individuals, you know, and so so you
(21:01):
It took a while for me to sort of say, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, that's sure of the word poet too. Poet implies
you sort of wise person, and that could be a
little uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And I didn't give myself that name. Actually, you know,
that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I know.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
You know Linda martsin Reid.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
One time at a dinner party when I was first
starting out some years ago, someone came came to me
and said, what's your name? And I always went by
Gold from a child, and so she immediately just took
me by the arm and said oh, that's poet gold
And I said, wow.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
That that I feel that. I feel that, and so
I owned.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
And she was executive director of Artmate Hussin's. Yeah, she
had a sense of art and whatnot. Would tell you
a little more sense of who you were in the
last two and a half minutes. You have your historical curiosity,
you have your own injury, and give us a little
more sense of what you saw about.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
So I like, like I said, I'm an artist more
primarily concerned with telling untold stories. I live in plataquill
In out in Oster County, or Puerto Rico as it's
also known. I live ten minutes away 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.
(22:19):
So I made it Spanish. I get spoken Spanish too,
a lot I got.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I got a few.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Salamlekoms in the middle too. I'm like, yeah, it's one
of those I guess racially ambiguous. It is probably the
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 means and what is the
(22:49):
history and what does it tell us, and I find
that I'm also gratified by all the allies that are
willing to put themselves also on the line and ask
those questions. And I'm just really grateful that the gallery director,
Alison McNulty and Lisa Silverstone at Safe Harbors of the
(23:10):
Hudson sort of parent organization of the of the gallery have,
you know, you know, trusted me to and and trusted
in the idea that this space could be one that
would honor people and gather people. And I think we're
starting to get some.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Of the I don't want to get you. We only
know blessed them, Okay, but I feel that with all
you have reverve and straight talking, you're also avoiding some things.
The beginning of.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Actually ishmael Is translates into Hebrew as he who listens
to God. So I have been listening and hopefully hearing
my ancestry, which mostly comes from my mother who's from Trinidad.
At the age of two, I spent a lot of
time with my grandmother there. I've been trying to channel
her a lot and ancestry in general, and my sister
(24:07):
as well. Uh, you know, and my condolences to you.
I should have started out by saying, thank for your sister,
because I've been there and I know that feeling of
what it is to see someone transition, and you know this,
this this project is is really all about that, asking
those questions about you know, where do where do we
come from? And where do we go? And how do
(24:29):
we honor the history of.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And where from?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right and well rising up from you, you gave 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 going to 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
Anne Street Gallery this coming Saturday. Those of you who
listen on the podcast on Friday and just have the
opportunity the month of February to meet Jean Mark, an
(24:54):
amazing human being. Thank you for the work that you do.
Thank you to our listeners, Thank you for listening to
finding out Pete Napoe Goal
Good morning. You'll find me out beating the polic Gold.
I'm Peter Leonards and I'm the poet Gold and we're
on the air this morning is Jean Marks Superville. And
before we get to Jean Mark, we're gonna go right
to the poet Goal for her weekly poem prayer incantation Gold.
Please let it.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Roll, Okay, Peter, Well, I'm going to bring back the
drum beats to rhythm. I can you know, so that
we don't forget that. Please do the drum beats rhythm
that tells my heart. I can the drum beats rhythm
that tells my heart. I can the drum beats to
rhythm that tells my heart. I can the drum beats
to rhythm that tells my heart. I can. I can
(00:33):
be like Harriet Tubman running, but I'm not running. I'm creating,
not escaping. She gave me that option years ago with
her sacrifice, so I may grow up and walk on
water like Christ because He is so dope and nice,
displaying outstanding possibilities everywhere. Tap me on the shoulders, pointed
me to the stars and said, there are the stairs
with faith. The sides of a mustard seed you can
(00:54):
move mountains, build igloos on deserts, turn rain drops into
beads of gold, and create the greatest stories that will
ever be told. I'm a descendant of the keenest mathematicians.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Did you not know that?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Recognize they figured the equations, built pyramids from a grain
of sand, set the top of transmitter, sending me messages
through the rhythm of the beat of the drums, telling
my heart. I can the drum beats, the rhythm that
tells my heart. I can the drum beats, rhythm that
tells my heart. I can, I can? I can the
drum beats the rhythm that tells our hearts.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
We can amen to that one too. And so before
we put the mics on, Jean miche was talking about
the energy that goes into performance and some you said,
goals really on fire weekhait of performance, and we got
a little spark right there.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well, we're looking forward to this weekend, Saturday, February thirds
performance where I'm sure sparks are going to fly this
past weekend on the On Saturday last Saturday at the Gallery,
we had Gwen Lastertrawassaic violinists Yes and their husband Damon
Banks and a quartet with Todd Eisler and Patrick Owns
(02:00):
and the goal.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I was there, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Was in the audience. I was in the audience, soaking
it all in and getting inspired. I was so inspired
I went out and bought myself a ukilaatee in Beacon. Yes,
I did take lessons.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Wow, Jamal, maybe you could give us a sense of
what your roles and all this.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
So the events that are happening at an Street Gallery
are all dedicated to what was once known as Newburgh's
Colored burial Ground. If you're driving off of eighty four
and you're heading into Newburg, you'll probably be on Robinson Avenue,
and when 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
(02:42):
it was a schoolhouse, it was a burial ground, and
it was what they call the colored burial ground. So
we are honoring the one hundred and fifteen who were
disinterred back in two thousand and eight and who are
waiting to be reburied soon in the city of Newburgh.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So let me gets a straight Yeah, I mean verstual
a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I know, it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Yeah. We started with the word color. I mean I've
old enough to know what that it's not. The color
is what used to be a polite term for you know,
whole black people, correct, And I guess it was never
really that polite. It always had a tinge to it
from what I could tell. But the buried ground for
black people, correct, was in Newburgh and the people, I
(03:29):
can say, the residents, the people buried were dug up.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Correct, So they're going to be buried again in that
That's right, that's correct. So in two thousand and eight,
when the schoolhouse is being converted into the current courthouse,
well when the shovel hits the ground and you find
you know, ancestors rising up with all their burial remains
(03:53):
and you know artifacts, and shout out to Kenneth Nice Stream.
Doctor Kenneth Ice Stream is the professor at Sunny Newpaul
who is the lead archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, who's prepared four hundred
pages of study of the bones, the osteology, the teeth.
You're talking about dental hygiene, because it's he tell us
a story. The bones tell us his story, The artifacts
(04:16):
tell us his story. And even though the historical narrative
will tell you that there is no way of knowing,
there are no way, there's no way of attributing any
names to those particular burials. Even though there's no way
of knowing, I think as we as artists have a
job to invent ways, and I think that that is
the purpose and that is the drive behind the work,
(04:38):
whether it's through 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 those untold stories told.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And you may say there's no way to knowing, yet correct.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So most modern historians will agree that 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 name. And yes, very much part of the
process is attributing names that we can speculate of those
(05:16):
who could be buried there.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And to my understanding, there are still in our conversation
from last week, there's still some bodies that actually cannot
be removed because they're holding up the structure.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So now, when we say that black people have been
the 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 the same with the building and
paraphrasing from the archaeology report, but to remove them with
structurally compromise the building. So they are one and the same.
(05:51):
You know, I've made it my you know life, you
have the whole row, hopefully a straight one. And so
I really focusing on the years of eighteen thirty two
to eighteen sixty seven. Those are the years in which
the burial ground was thought to be active.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So your answers come right after the end of the
Civil War.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
So there's a really interesting overlap between the years in
which the cemetery or the burial ground was used and
the end of what we call the abolition of slavery,
the gradual abolition of slavery in New York State. Can
I give you a little pop quiz, pete in mind,
when was slavery abolished in New York State? Oh, it's
(06:33):
taken this example for.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Luckily. Yeah, pretty comfortable, very good. Okay, Now, I don't know.
I know New York State was a place that had
a lot of slavery, very much ground zero, And I
don't know the answer to that question.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, I just wanted to quote since there is no
definitive answer. There's actually it's actually a trick question. But
according to the seventeen ninety nine Gradual Abolition Act of Slavery,
and I'm good to get a quote from it, so
those folks who don't know it verbatim can have it.
All children born of enslaved mothers after July third, seventeen
(07:14):
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 shall
be the servant of the legal proprietor of his or
her mother until such servant male shall arrive at the
age of twenty eight years and a female twenty five.
(07:38):
So when we say that slavery was abolished officially in
New York State in eighteen twenty seven, that's New York
State's emancipation Day. The answer is actually more complicated than that.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And you made a complicated but let me go right, Poet.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Gold, hold on to that thought. If you're just tuning in,
you're listening to finding out with Pete and the poet goal.
I'm the poet Golden. We're here having a wonderful conversation
about the ground from the ground from the ground up
with Jean Mark supervilled Sovad, the curator.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, Jean Monk, I wanted to go to one word
you used before that might have gotten to what I
consider an essence of art right now. I was talking
about a burial ground for black people who are so
far anonymous, we don't know who they are, and you
want to tell their stories correct And you said, okay,
(08:29):
there's not such historical data for it. But then you said,
but as artists, we have the responsibility to invent invents.
Is an interesting work because it sounds like it's artificial
in a sense that I'm made up or not true,
And I'm asking you is my interpretation of that word
(08:52):
to recreate to tell a deeper truth. Maybe then the
facts can come up with or it can go to
a level doesn't have you know facts you can match,
but it will resurrect the truth of the burial ground
in a way that it will be important to all
of us.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
There are all truths, absolutely believe, yes, the truths are
in many The truth is the is the historical tradition.
The truth is also the oral tradition. You know, we
tend to think of the truth in sort of very
very narrow ways. The truth is the Newburg City Almshouse records.
(09:36):
Because what you want to know about what was known
as the colored burial ground, you should you have to
also know about the Newburg Almshouse that operated the burial
grounds for those who could not afford to bury their own.
If you think about it, there was a lot of
a lot of a lot of poverty in the late
nineteenth century. And the better word for poverty in this
(09:59):
case is miseration. It was it was made to be
a whole separate class of people who were reintroduced to
what scholars like David Gelman call a reinvention of slavery
into what was called servitude. Yeah, slavery being developed entitlement.
(10:26):
It's entitlement to servitude. David Gelman, he wrote a book,
a very very thorough study. It's called Emancipating New York.
And what New York state legislators had to do in
the early nineteenth century and and and and beyond was
to convince slaveholders that they weren't taking their property away.
It said, it's it's not about property. What you really
(10:48):
you don't want to have to You know, you don't
own these people. You don't want to have to feed
them and clothe them and take care of them when
they're infirm and aged and sick. What you want, you slaveholders,
is entitlement to servitude. So what happens in eighteen twenty
seven when children are indentured is this state takes in
(11:11):
those children who would otherwise be known as abandoned and
become 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 the profits very often
with the very same former enslavers that the newly emancipated
(11:31):
now are working for. This is what David calls David
Gavin calls reparations not for the enslaved, but for the
former enslavers.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
And the word misery misery.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
A lot of historians, like a Cedia Hartman, talk of
the way in which 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 the news again because
his murder is on trial. Why was he murdered? Why
was he deemed a threat. Why is blackness associated with criminality?
(12:08):
Why is poverty associated with criminality? These are not accidents, right, right, right?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Actually, and we were sharing a story about Maria King.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Okay, so so part of what.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
You're what you were saying, you want you know, every
word of this is due to me. Okay, I don't know.
I started reading yea, so please go with the conference
that I got to hear it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Sure, sure, So part of what you're saying about the
ways of knowing, you know, inventing ways of 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 were buried there, but we do have Almshouse. We
have the Newburgh's Almshouse Commissioner's Examination log book from eighteen
(12:55):
fifty three to eighteen fifty eight that a fellow named
Mike van der Voord shout out to Mike and Ashley
be a genie who are working on Spoma, 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,
(13:16):
and we could come up with some very close guesses.
And so in that examination log book are all 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, were they not married? Where they
did they have children any quote unquote bastard children? You know,
(13:37):
it was a very thorough examination to understand what your
cause of poverty. And I was going to talk about
Maria King, but I wanted to mention another name that's
I've just been obsessed with.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Is Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe Colden. In eighteen fifty three, Phoebe
Colden visited the Newberg's Almshouse. And you can see right
here period you could read yourself. The first line of
her examination record was imported from Africa. Now I prefer
the term born, but this will tell you that this
is the person. Her first language probably wasn't English. And
(14:14):
it says that when she visited the almshouse in eighteen
fifty three, she thinks she.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Is one hundred and four years old. You see, I'm
quoting here right one hundred and four? What life did?
How many things did that woman?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
See?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
She had eleven children, the oldest of which is eighty.
You know, I mean this is a whole biography.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And the person had very good handwriting too.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
The examiner. There is a kind of horrible beauty in
which yesseration is being yes.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And what you stuck at for me in the language
of the terminology imported yes, yeah, like traded goods.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
No, and you want to go we can, we can
go there. Not only was she quote unquote imported as
you say, she was sold to a man named Codwallader Colden.
Now if you know who Codwallerder Colden, former New York
City mayor and president of the Manumission Society, and also
(15:14):
owns owned at the time or several thousand acres and
what was called Coldenham, so the right between Newburgh and
Montgomery today.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Wow, before close to her, you.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Don't have to let the people know who we know
who we are speaking.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We might be speaking with the smartest man we had
on the absolu.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
If you're just tuning in, you're listening to find it
out with Peting the poet Gold and I'm the poet
Gold and we are here with Jean Marks Superville Solvat,
the curator from the ground up.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
You got it from the ground up. That's how we're
describing the way in which these ancestors have risen up
absolutely to tell us their story.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So let's let's talk about this series that you have
going on, you know, from coming up from this Saturday on.
So sorry, it's a street gallery.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
At anstreet gallery. Okay. So first I just need to
give a shout out to those who have given us
the blessing I think that we needed to even begin
this work, which is members of the Newburgh Colored Burial
Ground Committee, in particular Gabrielle Burton Hill, who has been
steadfast you know, I couldn't ask for more of an
ally in the work that we are doing. The first
(16:26):
events started out in front of the courthouse just as
a form of gathering, a form of recognition of what
this site represents. The site will eventually be it. It
has been nominated and is on the National Register of
Historic Places, so look out for that eventually to happen.
But in the gallery as we transition to you know
months where it's probably a little better to gather inside
(16:49):
with a little coffee and treats, and we have blah
blah blah every Saturday from two to four pm. We'll
be hosting artists, historians, poets like yourself. The inimitable Edwin
Torres will be with us and Ulster County poet Laureate
Kate Hymes on the February third. This Saturday, on the tenth,
(17:14):
we're assembling an interfaith panel in Newburgh and 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 professor
at Bard College. She'll tell you all the history about
(17:36):
James Brown, the James Brown you need to know. James F. Brown,
a gardener who worked for thirty years, black man, formerly
a runaway from Maryland, who ended up in the Home
of the Planks and was a master gardener, rubbing shoulders
with Andrew Jackson Downing and Henry Winthrop's sergeant. I mean,
she will tell you, and I'm part of her talk
(17:57):
I think is going to be about the way in
which he also cared for others as an enfranchised man,
a man who owned a black man who owned property
which you needed to to vote in eighteen through all
the way up to eighteen sixty five. You need to
own two hundred and fifty dollars worth of property as
a quote unquote colored person to be able to colored man,
to be able to vote. James F. Brown used his
(18:20):
money to purchase the cemetery. Cemetery that's on corner of
North Walnut Street and Verplank and Beacon.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Today, you shouldn't have a familiar familiarity with enough formal history.
So are you trained in history or you surely have
a grassroots, a vibe and energy.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
I like to think of myself as my job begins
where historians end. You know, historians don't like they'd like
it to science. You know, they like to treat it
as such, and they want to be able to not
verge into what they call speculation. I am a speculator.
I think of myself as an unfinished business professional.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Let me give you a little footnote. I don't know
an awful lot of history, but I studied a lot
of Greek philosophy and thucidities. Who was one of them
considered one of the really great historians in all of history.
The city has wrote a book called The Peloponnesian Was
and the Peloponnesian was go much more along the lines
that you do, in other words, through cidities. He's got
(19:22):
all the facts, and when the facts aren't really illuminating
the truth, he makes stuff up. I mean, and it's
a creation or recreation and it's accurate. He assumes that
he knows what people are thinking, and he's right.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
So it's not It's not just the Greeks. I think
anyone who understands that ancestry transcends our very specialized notions
of biology and DNA, that especially those with broken ancestries,
you know, need to find ways to contact, to connect
with those ancestors like you do.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
So I mean, well that's you know, that's the importance
of the Greod, you know, to understand what the original
story was, have some concept of that, but also to
be able to take that history and move it forward,
you know. And how do you move it forward? You
connect the dots, and some dots in some.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Ways are predictable. You know.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
You can look at it history and go, okay, well
this is going to happen in this this pattern, I
can pretty much predict what's going to happen next, and
you put that into the story.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
And not everyone knows the word.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
That is.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
That is a traditional word for the storyteller in African tradition.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
That's right, and you fit into that tradition, do you
You can see it of yourself that way.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yes, I've learned to own it. I've learned to own it.
Before I was like, you know, because because you have
so much respect for griots and your ancestors and the
stories that are being passed on. And when someone comes
along and says, well, you're a griod, you know, you
first kind of go, no, that's for my So I
learned from these individuals, you know, and so so you
(21:01):
It took a while for me to sort of say, okay.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, that's sure of the word poet too. Poet implies
you sort of wise person, and that could be a
little uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And I didn't give myself that name. Actually, you know,
that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I know.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
You know Linda martsin Reid.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
One time at a dinner party when I was first
starting out some years ago, someone came came to me
and said, what's your name? And I always went by
Gold from a child, and so she immediately just took
me by the arm and said oh, that's poet gold
And I said, wow.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
That that I feel that. I feel that, and so
I owned.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
And she was executive director of Artmate Hussin's. Yeah, she
had a sense of art and whatnot. Would tell you
a little more sense of who you were in the
last two and a half minutes. You have your historical curiosity,
you have your own injury, and give us a little
more sense of what you saw about.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
So I like, like I said, I'm an artist more
primarily concerned with telling untold stories. I live in plataquill
In out in Oster County, or Puerto Rico as it's
also known. I live ten minutes away 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.
(22:19):
So I made it Spanish. I get spoken Spanish too,
a lot I got.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I got a few.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Salamlekoms in the middle too. I'm like, yeah, it's one
of those I guess racially ambiguous. It is probably the
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 means and what is the
(22:49):
history and what does it tell us, and I find
that I'm also gratified by all the allies that are
willing to put themselves also on the line and ask
those questions. And I'm just really grateful that the gallery director,
Alison McNulty and Lisa Silverstone at Safe Harbors of the
(23:10):
Hudson sort of parent organization of the of the gallery have,
you know, you know, trusted me to and and trusted
in the idea that this space could be one that
would honor people and gather people. And I think we're
starting to get some.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Of the I don't want to get you. We only
know blessed them, Okay, but I feel that with all
you have reverve and straight talking, you're also avoiding some things.
The beginning of.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Actually ishmael Is translates into Hebrew as he who listens
to God. So I have been listening and hopefully hearing
my ancestry, which mostly comes from my mother who's from Trinidad.
At the age of two, I spent a lot of
time with my grandmother there. I've been trying to channel
her a lot and ancestry in general, and my sister
(24:07):
as well. Uh, you know, and my condolences to you.
I should have started out by saying, thank for your sister,
because I've been there and I know that feeling of
what it is to see someone transition, and you know this,
this this project is is really all about that, asking
those questions about you know, where do where do we
come from? And where do we go? And how do
(24:29):
we honor the history of.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
And where from?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right and well rising up from you, you gave 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 going to 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
Anne Street Gallery this coming Saturday. Those of you who
listen on the podcast on Friday and just have the
opportunity the month of February to meet Jean Mark, an
(24:54):
amazing human being. Thank you for the work that you do.
Thank you to our listeners, Thank you for listening to
finding out Pete Napoe Goal
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