ZORA!® Festival National Planners
Known affectionately as “The Brain Trust,” the ZORA! Festival National Planners first met in 1991 in preparation for the 5th Annual ZORA! Festival, “An International Celebration,” scheduled to take place in January 1994.
Its members came from the ranks of America’s most distinguished scholars, cultural and civic leaders; and,ultimately, it was they who were responsible for establishing the stature of the ZORA! Festival as an award-winning , internationally recognized event. The current members continue the tradition established by their predecessors.
N.Y. Nathiri, MS (Library Science)
Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. (P.E.C.)
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N.Y. Nathiri
N.Y. Nathiri has worked in the field of historic preservation for more than three decades, all of that time having been spent on behalf of her hometown, Eatonville, Florida, which Zora Neale Hurston popularized as “the oldest incorporated African American community in the United States.” She is a founding member and currently the executive director of the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. (P.E.C.), a historic preservation/cultural arts/community revitalization organization, best known for its sponsorship of the annual Zora Neale Hurston™ Festival of the Arts and Humanities (ZORA!® Festival). Under her leadership, P.E.C. programs have received national recognition, including the ZORA!® Festival’s being named “One of 25 Cultural Tourism Success Stories” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and being the recipient of the “Regional Destination Award in the Humanities” from the Cultural Olympiad (Atlanta, 1996). She has also led the organization’s grants efforts, which cumulatively, have seen P.E.C receive funding totaling several millions dollars.
Nathiri holds an undergraduate degree in history from Ithaca College (New York) and a Master of Science degree in library science from Syracuse University. She is the compiler and editor of the award-winning volume, ZORA! Zora Neale Hurston: A Woman and Her Community (Sentinel Communications, 1991). She is also the recipient of several honors including being named “Hero of Preservation” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Mary Call Darby Collins Award presented by the Florida Secretary of State “In recognition of dedication and volunteer action that has forever changed the course of historic preservation in Florida.” In addition, she is the recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Rollins College.
Currently, she serves as Vice President for Cultural Heritage Tourism on the Board of Directors for the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, Inc. (HBTSA), a multi-state heritage preservation and economic development initiative.
Julian C. Chambliss, Ph.D.
Michigan State University
Lansing
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Julian C. Chambliss, Ph.D
Dr. Julian C. Chambliss is Professor of English with an appointment in History and the Val Berryman Curator of History at the MSU Museum at Michigan State University. In addition, he is a core participant in the MSU College of Arts & Letters’ Consortium for Critical Diversity in a Digital Age Research (CEDAR). His research interests focus on race, culture, and power in real and imagined urban spaces. His recent writing has appeared in American Historical Review, Phylon, Frieze Magazine, Rhetoric Review, and Boston Review. An interdisciplinary scholar he has designed museum exhibitions, curated art shows, and created public history projects that trace community, ideology, and power in the United States.
He is co-editor and contributor for Ages of Heroes, Eras of Men: Superheroes and the American Experience, a book examining the relationship between superheroes and the American Experience (2013). His recent book projects include Assembling the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Essays on the Social, Cultural and Geopolitical Domain (2018) and Cities Imagined: The African Diaspora in Media and History (2018). Chambliss is co-producer and host of Every Tongue Got to Confess, a podcast examining communities of color. Every Tongue is the winner of the 2019 Hampton Dunn New Media Award from the Florida Historical Society Florida. In addition, he co-produced and co-hosted with Dr. Robert Cassanello from University of Central Florida of the Florida Constitution Podcast, a limited series podcast that won the 2019 Hampton Dunn Internet Award from Florida Historical Society. He is producer and host of Reframing History, a podcast exploring history theory and practice in the United States.
José B. Fernández, Ph.D.
Dean Emeritus
University of Central Florida
Orlando
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José B. Fernández, Ph.D
Dr. José B. Fernández is Pegasus Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the Hispanic Heritage of the United States.
A former President of the Florida Historical Society and former Chair of the State of Florida Folklife Council, he served as a presidential appointee on the Commission to Study the Potential Creation of the National Museum of the American Latino. Currently, he serves on the National Planners Council of the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities.
Honorable Johnny Ford
Historic Black Towns and
Settlements Alliance, Inc. (HBTSA)
Tuskegee
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Honorable Johnny Ford
Vivian D. Geary, CMP
Universal Orlando Resort
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Vivian D. Geary, CMP
Vivian Geary, a 30-year employee at Universal Orlando Resort, is a Senior Event Manager and Certified Meeting Professional, the highest level of certification in her field. She has served as Volunteer Manager for the ZORA! Festival for more than a decade and has managed event logistics for Festival programs for the past several years.
Founder and CEO of Caring for Family Caregivers, LLC she is a caregiver coach, speaker and author, whose mission is to help individuals and families become comfortable with their new roles as they take on the caregiving duties for a loved one.
Lonnie Graham, MFA
Pennsylvania State University
University Park
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Lonnie Graham
Lonnie Graham, is an artist, photographer, and cultural activist whose work addresses the integral role of the artist in society and seeks to re-establish artists as creative problem solvers. He is a Pew Fellow and Professor at Pennsylvania State University and formerly served as the Acting Associate Director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Graham also served as Director of Photography at Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild in Pittsburgh, an urban arts organization dedicated to arts and education for at-risk youth. There, Graham developed innovative pilot projects merging Arts and Academics, which were ultimately cited by, then, First Lady Hillary Clinton as a National Model for Arts Education. Professor Graham also served as an instructor of special projects and oral historian for the Original Barnes Foundation in Merion Pennsylvania. In 1986, Professor Graham authored a project entitled, “A Conversation with the World,” which has been commissioned in various iterations in a number of countries around the world. Currently, he serves as the Resident Curator for the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts (The Hurston) in Eatonville, Florida.
Maryemma Graham, Ph.D.
University of Kansas
Lawrence
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Maryemma Graham, Ph.D
Dr. Maryemma Graham is University Distinguished Professor in English at the University of Kansas. In 1983, she founded and continues to direct The Project on the History of Black Writing [https://hbw.ku.edu/], the longest running documentary and literary archival/recovery project focusing on collaborative research, scholarship, and digital humanities. She had published twelve books, including Mobile and Entangled Americas, Au delà du visible ordinaire /Beyond the ordinary visible: Essays on Toni Morrison and The Cambridge History of African American Literature. Graham’s biography “The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker” is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Michelle Bachelor Robinson, Ph.D.
Spelman College
Atlanta
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Michelle Bachelor Robinson, Ph.D
Dr. Michelle Bachelor Robinson is the Director of the Comprehensive Writing Program and a
professor of African American Writing and Rhetoric at Spelman College. Her research and teaching focus on community engagement, historiography, African American rhetoric and literacy, composition pedagogy and theory, and student and program assessment. She is actively involved in community research, oral history collection, and community writing and serves as a university partner, consultant, and board member for the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance, Inc. Dr. Robinson co-edited The Routledge Reader of African American: The Longue Dureé of Black Voices and has written articles for Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition and The Alabama Humanities Review.
Trent Tomengo, MFA
Seminole State College of Florida
Sanford
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Trent Tomengo
Trent Tomengo is a Professor of Humanities at Seminole State College of Florida in Sanford where he teaches African American Humanities, Renaissance and Baroque Humanities and Medieval Humanities. He holds a Master of Fine Art degree in painting and a graduate certificate in museum studies from the University of South Florida. Mr. Tomengo has conducted public lectures and presentations on the Harlem Renaissance, Black cultural productivity, and the spirituality of the human condition in art. In his capacity as an arts and humanities consultant, he has served on various committees in the Central Florida arts community including the Community Advisory Council for the University of Central Florida Public History Center and the Academics Committee for the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities.
website: trenttomengo.com
Eleanor Traylor, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Howard University
Washington, D.C.
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Eleanor W. Traylor, Ph.D
Dr. Eleanor W. Traylor, Professor Emerita, Howard University is an acclaimed scholar and critic in African-American literature and criticism. She obtained a B. A. from Spelman College, a M.A. from Atlanta University and a Ph.D. from Catholic University.
Not exclusively an academician, she has maintained national and local ties via her advisory roles for organizations such as the D.C. Repertory Theater Company, the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowments for the Humanities.
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