bill batson

Bill Batson is a writer, artist and civic leader.

Bill is the manager and artist in residence at the Nyack Farmers Market and a Hudson Valley-based communications consultant. Batson has worked for non-profits, labor unions and elected officials.

Bill serves as a Trustee of Oak Hill Cemetery, President of the Mount Moor Cemetery Association and a lifetime member of the Historical Society of the Nyacks.

In June 2021, Bill was inducted into the Rockland County Hall Civil Rights Hall of Fame.

Four Decades of Merging Civics & Culture

Racial Histories of Brooklyn, (1986) 

Bill prepared six New York City High School students to conduct tours of their neighborhoods for their peers, research their local history and present a "visual term paper" on the walls of an art gallery. City As School Brooklyn was the project's sponsor

New York City Housing Authority Art Coordinator (1988)

In 1988, as the Art Coordinator for the New York City Housing Authority, he founded the Harborview Arts Center, a fully equipped visual media training center that provides art programming to support community and senior centers staff across the five boroughs. The year round arts program conducts staff development workshops, distributes art supplies to community centers, and organizes a Summer Art Camp with museum tours.

Project Hip Hop (1990)

Using the acronym of Highways into the Past, History Organizing and Power, Bill led a group of 12 students an an education tour of the American South to visit sites of the South Civil Rights movement including the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. The Massachusetts Civil Liberty Union was a project partner

Nyack Sketch Log (2011)

The author and Illustrator of the Nyack Sketch Log on nyacknewsandviews.com has published over 300 columns since 2011. Two collections of Batson’s essays have been published Nyack Sketch Log Volume I (2014) and Nyack Sketch Log Volume II (2019)

Flash Sketch Mob (2012)

On June 16, 2012, Batson produced the world’s first “Flash Sketch Mob” in Nyack inviting a group of 100 intergenerational residents of the Village of Nyack, NY were invited to take positions 12 paces apart along a half-mile stretch of a street. They used their personal, varied art supplies to make a record of their community. The result can be collaged accordion-style into a panoramic

Artists of all ages and skill levels, including three generations of several families, 'oohed and ahhed' as the collective illustrations of a whole community emerged. You can view a slideshow of their work here.

Since then, our SketchMobs have captured most of Nyack’s Main Street, our farmers market, a summer camp, and an elementary school. One was even held via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toni Morrison Bench by the Road (2015)

Bill chaired Nyack Commemoration Committee, an effort that successfully established a Toni Morrison Society  “Bench by the Road” monument in memorial park. Nyack’s bench was erected to honor entrepreneur and abolitionist, Cynthia Hesdra.

Nyack Record Shop Project (2018)

In 2018, Bill created the Nyack Record Shop Project, a community component of the Carrie Mae Weems exhibit at the Edward Hopper House that collected three dozen oral histories of the local African American community. 

Nyack Mask Makers (2020)

In 2020, Bill co-founded Nyack Mask Makers, a crowd-sourced effort that recruited 600 volunteers and donors to make and distribute over 15,000 free reusable cloth masks to over 50 public and private civic institutions during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rockland County As A Civics Classroom (2024)

In 2024, Bill received a grant from the Rockland Community Foundation for create a experiential culture and civics course at Ramapo High School.

Coming soon…

This third volume in my sketch log series, Civil Rights Sketch Log will be published on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday in 2026, during the 250th anniversary of the signing  of the Declaration of Independence.

The third volume of the series will feature 50 sketches of sites of significant civil rights struggles and short essays as well as contact and visitor information about each site.

Selected bibliography

Bill’s writing has appeared in Essence Magazine, New York’s Amsterdam News, and The Argus in Cape Town, South Africa. While in South Africa, Bill received the Bertram’s Young Writer Award and won first place in the Sidelines Journal Student Essay competition. One of his essays, “In Africa Men Hold Hands” is included in a college text book written by Susan Ankara and published in 2003 by Bedford St. Martin’s.

Selected Press

Bill’s work as an artist has been profiled in New York Newsday (6/27/99), Daily Heights (6/16/05), Brooklyn Rail,(12/04/06), NyackNewsandViews (1/4/18). LoHud covered Bill’s election as Friends of Mount Moor Cemetery (8/14/24)