Sylvester Manor Educational Farm and Eastville Community Historical Society present their 7th annual Black History Month celebration, “Manor to Manor: Shaping America.”
The online program looks at connections between three generations of African and European descendants of Sylvester Manor and Lloyd Manor, including Jupiter Hammon, the country’s first published African American poet.
The free program take place via Zoom on Sunday, February 28 at 2 PM. To sign up, follow this link to visit EventBrite.
Eastville Community Historical Society (ECHS) Executive Director Georgette Grier-Key will moderate a conversation with Sylvester Manor Curator Archivist Donnamarie Barnes and Lauren Brincat, a curator at Preservation Long Island which oversees the Joseph Lloyd Manor House in Huntington.
The two locations are connected through Tammero and Oyou of Sylvester Manor, grandparents of Jupiter Hammon, who lived and worked at Lloyd Manor.
About the ‘Manor to Manor’ presenters
Brincat oversees a collection of over 3,000 objects, 185 cubic feet of archival materials, and three historic houses. She has worked in museums and historical societies for over a decade, specializing in curation, exhibition and program development, and collections management.
Brincat held positions at the Museum of the City of New York and the New-York Historical Society. She earned a BA in History and Anthropology from the College of William and Mary and an MA in American Material Culture with a certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Program.
Barnes began working as Sylvester Manor Educational Farm’s curator/archivist after spending 30+ years in photojournalism as a photo editor. Her ongoing work of conserving the various collections at Sylvester Manor, researching and uncovering the lives and identities of the enslaved and indigenous people is an integral part of the organization’s mission to preserve, cultivate and share the stories of all the people of Sylvester Manor.
Barnes curated “Women of the Manor,” “A Place in Pictures” and “All That Has Been: Our Roots Revealed”, year-long exhibitions that present archival material, archaeological finds, and other research for display in the Manor House. Her work at Sylvester Manor also includes ongoing photography projects relating to the memory of slavery felt in the landscape.
An adjunct assistant professor at CUNY Medgar Evers College, Dr. Grier-Key has worked in various museums, historical societies, and service organizations with a focus on organizational sustainability. A historian, preservationist, and curator, she applies her skills and experience as an organizer and activist to further an agenda of inclusion in traditional frameworks that have practiced institutional and structural exclusion.
Dr. Grier-Key serves on the boards of the Museum Association of New York and the Preservation League of New York State. She also serves on local and regional boards such as the NAACP Brookhaven Town Branch, where she is president.
