Tickets
General Ticket: $10
Member Ticket: Free, RSVP Required
Celebrate a local living legend Dr. Georgette Grier-Key - esteemed culture leader and acclaimed historian, educator, and advocate! The current Executive Director and Chief Curator of Eastville Community Historical Society will shine a light on her story. How did a child with a dream became a woman making monumental strides in her community and worldwide? Her impact is profound and her work paramount in creating a more inclusive community that prioritizes, with pride, accurate historical narratives. Come join us as we learn from this incredible woman and community pillar. An enlightening Q&A to follow.
An influential leader in several arenas, Dr. Grier-Key’s legacy is actively and effectively shaping a civic and cultural landscape that celebrates education, preservation, art, history, and culture. Disrupting the frameworks that uphold institutional and structural exclusion and fiercely advocating for the education that distills the ignorance of cultural incompetency, the Medger Evers College Professor also holds several leadership positions throughout New York State. This includes the President of the NAACP Brookhaven Town Branch, advisory board member of the Preservation League of New York State, among others.
This Knowledge Friday is programmed in tandem with our current exhibition Dear Mazie, an exhibition that celebrates the life, legacy and enduring influence of Amaza Lee Meredith our nation’s first practicing Black female architect and Azurest co-founder. Dr. Grier-Key’s work is directly responsible for the preservation of the Azurest community and her trailblazing legacy a wonderful mirror to Meredith’s enduring presence in her community.
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DR. GEORGETTE GRIER-KEY is an internationally recognized historian, educator, advocate, and Culture Leader whose mission is powerfully focused on Aligning Government, Not-for-Profits, Business, and Community to foster an inclusive and accurate historical narrative. She is an avid practitioner of grounded theory and sustainability models, utilizing these approaches to actively disrupt the agenda of traditional frameworks that have long upheld institutional and structural exclusion.
Dr. Grier-Key holds numerous influential leadership positions across New York State's civic and cultural landscape. She is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of Eastville Community Historical Society and is a leading figure in civil rights as the President of the NAACP Brookhaven Town Branch and the Long Island Regional Director for the NYS NAACP Conference. Her dedication to preserving the past is evident in her role as advisory board member of the Preservation League of New York State (PLNYS) and was the first Black Board President of the Museum Association of New York (MANY). She further shapes the state’s historical memory as a New York State 250th Commemoration Commissioner and Vice President of the Women's Rights Alliance of New York State.
Dr. Grier-Key brings her expertise into higher education as a professor at Medgar Evers College, specializing in the development of the United States, African American History and Culture and the modern Civil Rights Movement. She created and directed the Long Island History Institute at SUNY Nassau Community College, a grant-funded initiative that supported local history scholarship. A highly regarded guest curator and consultant, Dr. Grier-Key is elected to various outlets that inform and further the study of art, history, preservation, and culture.
Dr. Grier-Key is one of the most outspoken advocates using and teaching cultural competence to illuminate marginalized histories. Her work includes significant partnerships as a Cultural Partner to Sylvester Manor Farm on Shelter Island (one of the earliest provisioning plantations in the northwest) and an Advisory to the Jupiter Hammon Project (honoring America's first published African American). Crucially, she is a principal organizer for Amistad Week in Montauk and spearheaded the East Hampton Town Board's unanimous designation of August 26th as Amistad Day, ensuring the local commemoration of this pivotal moment in the international fight for human rights. Furthermore, as a founding member and lead organizer of the Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee, her expertise in preservation is directly leading the effort to rebuild the formerly enslaved Pyrrhus Concer’s homestead in the heart of Southampton Village, serving as a powerful and enduring commitment to historical justice and remembrance.