Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Ed.D, M.Ed. is the inaugural Executive Director and Chief Curator of Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor, NY, the President of the Association of Suffolk County Historical Societies, and Cultural Partner for Sylvester Manor of Shelter Island. She is one of the most outspoken advocates for the preservation and celebration of Long Island history with an emphasis on African American, Native-American and mixed-heritage historical reconstruction. As a founding member and lead organizer of the Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee, her work led to the rebuilding of the formerly enslaved Pyrrhus Concer’s homestead in Southampton’s Village.
Dr. Grier-Key is a full-time history and political science professor at SUNY Nassau Community College (NCC), where she created the new grant-funded History Institute and local history initiative. Most recently, she was elected to the 2019 class of board trustees for the Preservation League of New York State and the 2020 class of the board of directors of the Museum Association of New York. Dr. Grier-Key has been a guest curator at the Suffolk County Historical Society of Riverhead and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. She has delivered lectures at the CUNY Graduate Center, LIU Brooklyn, Hofstra University, and Suffolk County Community College. She serves on the Black History Commission of the Town of Brookhaven and their Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Committee and was awarded the Legacy Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Central Islip Branch.
Dr. Grier-Key contributes commentary regularly to local media outlets on Long Island, including Newsday, Sag Harbor Express, CBS New York, and News 12. Her research has been published in the Long Island History Journal and the Suffolk County Historical Society Register.