Living History

The work that Dr. Georgette Grier-Key and Brenda Simmons do to keep a strong spotlight on the region’s African American community, past and present, is valuable beyond measure. A new project they’ve undertaken, as powerful as it is, should not be left to do its work alone: It is an opportunity to begin to address a generational failure to animate local and American history for young people to appreciate.

It’s a dynamic job they’ve done, creating a cellphone tour focusing on the “Hamptons Civil Rights Back Story.” Over the past year, they worked on a tour, which launched over the weekend, allowing participants to make four “stops” where they can view photos and hear audio, using their personal cellphones and the TravelStorys app, to experience a bit more about life in the Black community over the years.

Grier-Key, the executive director of the Eastville Community Historical Society, and Simmons, executive director of the Southampton African American Museum, have seeded the experience with four essential stops. Those who take the tour will learn about Freetown in East Hampton, about the SANS Historical District in Sag Harbor, the Southampton African American Museum and its earlier life as a barber shop and beauty salon that was the center of the village’s Black community, and, of course, Pyrrhus Concer, one of Southampton’s greatest citizens.

History can be taught, read about or seen in museums — but experiencing it “in the wild,” in the actual places where historic things happened, has a more visceral quality. Standing near the site of Concer’s homestead, you can feel the breezes traveling across Lake Agawam and, in many ways, across time: Concer felt those same breezes on this spot. No museum exhibit can provide that kind of connection.

Podcasts have soared in popularity because it’s engaging to hear smart people, in their own voices, share their knowledge and experiences. The voices heard through this cellphone tour are varied and tell a complicated story that has largely gone untold among a wider audience.

Simmons speaks about her experiences in a Southampton Village of the past where racial epithets were common. The discussion of the SANS neighborhoods of Sag Harbor can introduce the concept of redlining and the role it played in enforcing quiet discrimination — and remind people of the Black families that still found a way to make space for themselves.

This is living history — and it would be a shame if the effort were wasted. Every school on the South Fork should follow Hayground School’s lead and take up the challenge, using it as a first step into a voyage of curiosity: What was Freetown, and how could it exist in East Hampton? Who were our ancestors whose images might not be so easily found in history books?

The questions have gone unasked in our schools for far too long. Perhaps this modest tour is a match that will light a bonfire of knowledge.