In this episode, host Esi Lewis sits down with Ed Bell, a retired Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs at SUNY New Paltz, where he worked for twenty years. Ed shares the remarkable story of how he came to New Paltz in 1967 with a singular mission: to build a track program from the ground up — recruiting athletes, purchasing equipment, and working with architects to construct the track itself. His teams went on to win city and regional championships and competed at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, making their mark in a SUNY system that was, at the time, overwhelmingly white.

Ed reflects on the vibrant Black community that existed in and around New Paltz during his years there — one that included IBM professionals, educators, artists, and Greek life members — and how that community actively supported one another through organizations like Concerned Parents. He also shares memories of his close friendship with printmaker and artist Ben Wigfall, his first friend in New Paltz, and speaks warmly about raising his family in the area. Ed's life story stretches from a childhood split between a small all-white Illinois town and the bustling neighborhoods of Queens, to attending Tennessee State University during the era of segregation, to later traveling to Japan, France, and Cuba.

Ed is also an accomplished poet — a passion rooted in his grandmother, a poet herself who read her work to him after his mother passed away when he was just two and a half years old. He shares the story of how a visit to the White House in the 1990s moved him to write a letter to President Clinton advocating for Black art in the permanent collection — a letter that directly contributed to the acquisition of the first work by an African American artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner, into that collection. Ed closes the episode with two powerful readings from his latest collection, Undulations, including the stirring poem "We're Still Here."

In this episode of We Be Griots, host Esi Lewis sits down with Kate Hymes Flanagan — Ulster County's first Poet Laureate, and author of the poem "We Be Griots," which inspired the name of this very podcast series. Kate shares her story of growing up in segregated New Orleans, her journey to New York for graduate school, and her long career in education at SUNY New Paltz and beyond.

Kate also reflects on her path as a poet and her deep commitment to preserving the stories of Black communities in New Paltz. She closes with readings from two of her most powerful works, "Be Intentional" and "We Be Griots," reminding us that every person has a story worth telling — and that we are all capable of being griots ourselves.

In this episode, host Esi Lewis sits down with Heriberto Dixon, a scholar, educator, and longtime friend, for a wide-ranging conversation about identity, ancestry, and spiritual belonging. Dixon shares the story of his lifelong connection to Native American culture — rooted in a request from his mother decades ago to uncover their Native American ancestry — and recounts deeply personal experiences visiting the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation, where he felt an inexplicable sense of home despite never having been there before. Drawing on Lakota tradition, Black Elk's vision, and the philosophy of "mitákuye oyásʼiŋ" (all my relations), Dixon reflects on what it means to live in a state of gratitude and to see all of life as interconnected.

Dixon also explores the emerging field of African Native American identity — what anthropologists call ethnogenesis — tracing his own family's connections to the Muskogee Creek, the Nanticoke of Maryland, and possibly the Chickamauga Cherokee. He discusses how Indian slavery, largely erased from popular history, helps explain the deep intertwining of African and Native American ancestry, and pushes back against the idea that claiming Native heritage means denying African roots, arguing instead that identity is about addition, not subtraction.

The conversation also touches on Dixon's distinguished academic career, including his time teaching strategic management at SUNY New Paltz, his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, and his belief in experiential, adult-centered education inspired by Paulo Freire. He shares warm memories of the late Dr. Margaret Wade Lewis, in whose honor this podcast is produced, and closes with a reflection on legacy, storytelling, and the power of finally seeing one's own vision realized.