Every Tongue Got to Confess

During the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, interviewer Kimberly Williams talked with Iheoma Nwachukwu about Afrofuturism. Nwachukwu is a fiction writer and poet from Nigeria. In this conversation, Nwachukwu reflects on the realities of African culture captured by contemporary Afrofuturist practice.

During the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, interviewer Grace Chun talked with Tenea Johnson about Afrofuturism. Johnson is a speculative fiction author, poet, and musician. She is the author of several books, including Smoketown: A Novel as well as Starting Friction, a collection of poetry and prose.

During the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, interviewer Grace Chun talked with Phenderson Djeli Clark about Afrofuturism. Clark is a writer of speculative fiction, including The Black God's Drums and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. In this conversation, he recounts the complex journey that defines his black speculative practice.

During the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, interviewer Tiffany Pennamon talked with Chesya Burke about her work in Afrofuturism. Burke is an editor, educator, and author of comic books and speculative fiction, including The Strange Crimes of Little Africa, and Let's Play White. Burke shares her vision of how black writers reach back to the past to reframe the future.

During the ZNH Festival of the Arts and Humanities, Kimberly Williams talked with Maurice Broaddus in Eatonville, Florida about his work. Broaddus is a writer, a community organizer, and a teacher who uses Afrofuturism in his writing and life. His books The Knights of Breton Court Trilogy, the steampunk novel, Pimp My Airship, and the YA detective novel, The Usual Suspects.

During the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, Dr. Michele Berger spoke about her work and the wider implications of Afrofuturism. Dr. Berger is an award-winning scholar and writer who sheds light on the ways Afrofuturism centers the transformative vision offered by black women.

Dr. Reynaldo Anderson gave the keynote presentation at the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival Academic Conference. His lecture, “Afrofuturism: The Rise of the Black Speculative Tradition” offered a holistic view of the long tradition of black speculative practice. Dr. Anderson is co-editor of the book, Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness and executive director and co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM).

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Kinitra Brooks. Brooks is the Audrey and John Leslie Endowed Chair in Literary Studies in the Department of English at Michigan State University. She specializes in the study of black women, genre fiction, and popular culture. In this conversation, she explores the roots and meaning of Afrofuturism.

During the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, Dr. Isiah Lavender reflected on questions of race, meaning, and culture inspired by Afrofuturism.

In this episode, Holly Baker talks with Dr. Julian Chambliss about Afrofuturism and the Zora Neale Hurston Festival.

During the 2019 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of Arts and Humanities, we spoke to Honorable Edward Jones. He is the seventh and current mayor of Grambling, Louisiana, one of the historic black communities that founded the Historic Black Towns and Settlement Alliance (HBTSA).

During the 2019 festival, we spoke with Deborah Plant. Dr. Plant is an Africana Studies scholar and literary critic and an associate professor at the University of South Florida. She is also the editor of the recently published book, Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo, written by Zora Neale Hurston in 1931.

During the 2019 Zora Neale Hurston Festival, we spoke with Dr. Pamela McCauley. Dr. McCauley is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and a tenured Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems at the University of Central Florida where she leads the Human Factors in Disaster Management Research Team.

407 Julian Chambliss and the Black Imaginary Inspired By Zora Neale Hurston by Julian Chambliss

During the 2019 Zora Neale Hurston Festival, we spoke with Joshua Walker, one of the cofounders of Black Orlando Tech (BOT) about technology, innovation, and the way the Zora Festival is inspiring a new generation of black innovators.

During the 2019 Zora Neale Hurston Festival, we spoke with Dr. Diedre H. Crumbley, anthropologist and Professor Emerita at North Carolina State University about her long legacy of engagement with the Zora Neale Hurston, Eatonville, and the Festival.

We spoke with Zienzi Dillon, a banker and international financier about the Zora Neale Hurston Festival and the opportunity for engagement with Africa.

Holly Baker spoke with Dr. Anna Lillios about Zora Neale Hurston and the Zora Fest. Dr. Lillios is an author and a professor of English at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Lillios long history with the festival sheds light on Hurston's centrality to modern academia.

We spoke with Dr. Cheryl Wall at the 2019 Zora Neale Hurston Festival. Dr. Wall is a literary critic and professor of English at Rutgers University.

During the 2019 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, we spoke with award-winning author, poet, and activist Alice Walker about Zora Neale Hurston and the Festival.

Ambassador Harriet Elam-Thomas talks about her diplomatic career and discusses how African American students can impact the global community through foreign relations.

Dr. Julian Chambliss talks about the history of the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities and its emphasis on education, culture, and building community.

Rev. Dr. Danita Blow talks about the benefits of homeschooling, particularly for the African American community.

Dr. Julian C. Chambliss discusses his departure from Rollins College in Central Florida, joining the Department of English at Michigan State University, and his continued connection to the Zora Neale Hurston Festival in historic Eatonville.

Artist and Eatonville native Mariah Roman talks about growing up in Eatonville and carrying on the community’s legacy through community-based projects.

Neighborhood Coordinator for the Town of Eatonville and native Jasmyne Reese discusses growing up in Eatonville and carrying on the community’s legacy through community-based projects.

Dr. Jennifer Cavenaugh, Dean of the Faculty at Rollins College, discusses the historic connection between Rollins College and Zora Neale Hurston.

Candace Finley, former Orange County public school teacher and founder/CEO of ESTEAMed Learning talks about STEAM project-based learning, education training, professional development, and the ways in which Zora Neale Hurston inspires her.

Shy Morris discusses her arts activism through her Peace Arts program that combines education, arts, and community service to empower African American youth in New Smyrna's Historic West Side community.

Walter Hawkins, President of the Jones High School Museum and Oswmar Louis, a college student at the University of Central Florida talk about the Jones High School Museum and the recent documentary film about the Jones High School marching band historic participation in the 1964 World's Fair called Marching Forward.

Dr. Walter Greason, Dean of the honors school and chair of the Department of Education at Monmouth University talks about journalist and civil rights leader T. Thomas Fortune, community building, and tapping into the energy of the festival in order to mobilize locally and nationally.

Dr. Scot French and Mr. Gramond McPherson discuss the exhibit they curated for the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts on the founding of the Association to Preserve Eatonville Community.

Dr. Grant Cornwell, president of Rollins College outlines how the aims of the Communities Conference co-sponsored by Rollins College and Zora Neale Hurston Festival factors into a holistic vision of liberal arts at Rollins College.

Lizette Valarino, the former Special Assistant to Orange County Mayors Mel Martinez and Richard Crotty, discusses the historic legacy of Latinx cultural activism in Central Florida.

Scott French discusses the importance of finding and preserving history in local communities of color. At the Zora Festival in 2017, he led several students in their research projects about real-life, local, and important community history initiatives. Dr. French and his students use digital storytelling tools to magnify the narratives of the communities they partner with.

Carlene Jackson speaks about the National Urban Housing and Economic Community Development Corporation (NUHECDC), a non-profit organization that works to implement a comprehensive approach to fighting poverty in urban areas through affordable housing, homeownership, and life skills training for those with barriers to employment.

Porsha Dossie discusses her research on uncovering the hidden history of vibrant African American communities in historic Seminole County, Florida. She used a range of digital and traditional methodologies to achieve her final project, which was an online collection of stories and artifacts.

Michelle Robinson speaks about her research projects with graduate students and community members in Hobson City -- the first self-governed black municipality in the state of Alabama.

Jose Flores discusses a research project centered on the influence and importance of Arturo Schomburg – activist, writer, historian, and philanthropist during the Harlem Renaissance – especially for Puerto Ricans in New York. Schomburg viewed Pan Africanism as an avenue to create political expression for Puerto Ricans and African Americans alike.

Holly Baker explains her ongoing effort to produce a curated online exhibit featuring folk songs and folklorists from communities of color throughout state of Florida, collected by the Federal Writers Project during The Depression Era.

A conversation with Gramond McPherson about the ways in which the Orlando community of Paramore – a historically and still predominantly black community in central Florida – views itself and its history. His research project also explores how that community history is portrayed to the broader public.

A conversation with Dr. Clarissa West-White about 21st century solutions for issues facing minority communities across the state of Florida and the nation more broadly. Dr. West-White specifically talks about the value of undergraduate students becoming fully engaged in community projects and archival research as a form of civic engagement.

A discussion between Brandon Nightingale and Holly Baker about preserving church history in Orlando, Florida through the work of citizen curators and public history students. He shares his experiences related to the Carter Tabernacle Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church in the context of his recent Public History coursework, including the creation of oral history interviews.

A discussion with Dr. Walter Greason about how the academic component of the Annual Zora Festival – the Communities of Color Conference – can deepen the impact of the organization nationally and internationally in terms of sharing community solutions.

A conversation with Dr. Mary Conway Dato-on, Crummer Associate Professor of International Business and Social Entrepreneurship, about the thoughts and principles used to create sustainable, on-going, social enterprises for the promotion of community change.

A discussion with Dr. Jill Jones, professor of English at Rollins College about Zora Neale Hurston’s impact on African-American literature and society.

A conversation with Dr. Leslie Poole, professor of Environmental Studies at Rollins College about human environmental interactions and the promotion of health and well-being in our community.

A discussion with Dr. Julian Chambliss, professor of History and Coordinator of the Africa and African-American Studies program at Rollins College about the community engagement experience as a part of Rollins College curriculum.

"Every Tongue Got To Confess" is hosted by Professors of History Julian Chambliss (Rollins College) and Robert Cassanello (University of Central Florida). In the same spirit as Zora Neale Hurston - famous African American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist - this podcast explores the experiences and stories of communities of color. In episode 6 we have a discussion of how local communities may be a partner to educational institutions through an ecosystem of curricular and co-curricular activities.

A discussion with New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow about the concerns facing communities of color in the United States.

"Every Tongue Got To Confess" is hosted by Professors of History Julian Chambliss (Rollins College) and Robert Cassanello (University of Central Florida). In the same spirit as Zora Neale Hurston - famous African American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist - this podcast explores the experiences and stories of communities of color. Episode 5 features a discussion about the Community of Color Conference to debut in 2017.