S2E9: Going Viral

S2E9: Going Viral

In this episode of Stone Written, host Dr. Rhon sits down with Dr. Donovan Livingston — educator, poet, MC, Chapel Hill Poet Laureate, and UNC alumnus who initially struggled to make it through. Now back at Carolina as Teaching Assistant Professor and Director of College Thriving, Dr. Livingston reflects on the full-circle journey from undergraduate to community leader and scholar.  They dig into what it really means to thrive — beyond GPA and accolades — and explore the dangers of hyper-visibility in the social media age. Dr. Livingston gets candid about what it was like when his 2016 Harvard graduation speech, Lift Off, went viral, racking up millions of views and a shoutout from Hillary Clinton — and why going viral isn't all it's cracked up to be.  From the power of educators who make room for students to become themselves, to the concept of "body fictions" and the false intimacy of social media, this conversation moves between the cosmic and the deeply personal. Expect poetry, real talk, and a cipher or two.  Sources:   * About Dr. Livingston [https://music.unc.edu/people/musicfaculty/donovan-livingston/] (via UNC-Chapel Hill)  * Dr. Livingston’s famed speech, Lift Off [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eUl4gF0ED4]  * College Thriving curriculum [https://ideasinaction.unc.edu/first-year-foundations/thrive/] at UNC-Chapel Hill  * Debra Walker King, Body Politics and the Fictional Double [https://iupress.org/9780253108326/body-politics-and-the-fictional-double/] (2000).  * The Sonja Haynes Stone Center [https://stonecenter.unc.edu/]

S2E8: It's Our Turn

This episode features Jaha Nailah Avery, UNC law school alum turned griot and professional storyteller. Jaha shares her journey from practicing law to freelance writing for outlets like Vanity Fair and The New York Times, explaining how she left a lucrative tech career to pursue meaningful storytelling work. She discusses her books, including Those Who Saw the Sun: African American Oral Histories from the Jim Crow South, and her role as a keeper of cultural memory. The conversation explores the importance of documenting Black history, the courage required to tell truth in dangerous times, and strategies for resistance through joy, creativity, and ancestral connection.  Sources:  Jaha Nailah Avery, I Heard: An American Journey [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/735583/i-heard-by-jaha-nailah-avery-author-steffi-walthall-illustrator/9781623543822/] (Penguin Random House, 2024)  Jaha Nailah Avery, Those Who Saw the Sun: African American Oral Histories from the Jim Crow South [https://www.levinequerido.com/products/those-who-saw-the-sun?srsltid=AfmBOopJ0xt7y8dkACzXRgPJE4y0rLi6hXpdDSuvv19NcJZVpuMMqecP] (Levine Querido, 2023).  A selection of Jaha's public works: * “10 Black History Tours and Experiences in New Orleans” [https://www.cntraveler.com/story/10-black-history-tours-and-experiences-in-new-orleans] (Conde Nast, 2024)  *  “As it Nears 25, ‘Eve’s Bayou’ is Still Radical—and Wonderful” [https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/09/eves-bayou-movie-25th-anniversary] (Vanity Fair, 2022)  *  “Fashion on a Mission: Celebrating Black Life, One Thread At a Time” [https://www.essence.com/fashion/black-owned-apparel-brands-culture-pride/] (Essence, 2026) [See also Jaha’s author’s page on Essence [https://www.essence.com/authors/jaha-nailah-avery/]]  *  “How the Peacock Chair Became a Symbol of Black Power and Liberation” [https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/peacock-chair-black-history] (Architectural Digest, 2023)  * “Where Rihanna Got Her Style Groove” [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/style/festivals-fashion-where-rihanna-got-her-style-groove.html] (New York Times, 2022)

S2E7: Living at the Intersection

In this powerful conversation, Dr. Rhon sits down with Tanasia Lea—Olympic-level triple jumper, equity consultant, birth doula, and mother—to explore what it means to live authentically at the intersection of ALL parts of who we are.  Tanasia shares her journey from New Haven to Williams College, through the corporate machine, and into transformation work that centers psychological agency, vitality, and permission to be fully human.  They discuss: 🔹 Navigating PWIs and white supremacy culture 🔹 The power of Africana Studies as a lens for understanding the world 🔹 Finding joy 🔹 The importance of surrounding yourself with people who trust you'll land well  "Everyone has agency—it's exercising that agency that provides vitality." —Tanasia Lea  Sources:   * Tanasia’s website [https://www.tanasialea.com/]:  * Tanasia’s feature in Athleta: “The Power of She” [https://www.google.com/search?q=athleta+power+of+she+ad&sca_esv=cb0b2358a0071c17&rlz=1C5GCEM_enUS1116US1117&sxsrf=ANbL-n4-xij18bYZ3XTeVu1syg43511RcA%3A1772537579071&ei=68amaa2IBM2i5NoPhJeB0AQ&biw=1467&bih=757&oq=athleta+power+of+she+ad&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiF2F0aGxldGEgcG93ZXIgb2Ygc2hlIGFkKgIIADIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFMggQABiABBiiBDIFEAAY7wVIqBZQmwRY6AZwAXgBkAEAmAFOoAHOAaoBATO4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgSgAtoBwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICExAuGIAEGLADGNEDGEMYxwEYigXCAg0QABiABBiwAxhDGIoFwgIFEAAYgATCAgoQABiABBhDGIoFmAMAiAYBkAYKkgcBNKAH3QyyBwEzuAfWAcIHAzEuM8gHCIAIAA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:fbb766a5,vid:WxZ2iaB9kJw,st:0]   * Make the Sonja Haynes Stone Center and Stone Written your philanthropic priority! https://linktr.ee/shscgiving [https://linktr.ee/shscgiving]

S2E6: Mother McNeil Taught Us

What does it mean to sit with the odyssey of Black history—and to carry it forward with rigor, spirit, and love?  In this powerful episode of Stone Written, Dr. Rhon is joined by historian, cultural critic, and filmmaker Dr. Claudrena N. Harold, Edward Stettinius Professor of History and Associate Dean at the University of Virginia, and featured speaker for the 2025 Genna Rae McNeil Black History Month Lecture at UNC-Chapel Hill.  From her early formation in Black institutions to her intellectual awakening at Temple University, Dr. Harold reflects on the beauty and majesty of African American history—and the joy that fuels her scholarship. Together, she and Dr. Rhon consider why Black history demands that we pause and dwell with it, not rush past it; how Black Studies remains both a struggle over definition and a space of boundless possibility; and how gospel music, creative form, and intergenerational lineage sustain Black freedom work across generations.  At the heart of this conversation is a meditation on Dr. Genna Rae McNeil’s legacy. Dr. Harold shares how McNeil’s work—grounded in historical rigor and spiritual depth—inspired her McNeil Lecture, “Truth Is on the Way: Gospel Music, Black Liberation, and the Politics of Freedom in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras.”  This episode is part testimony, part masterclass, part love letter to Black Studies. It is about Du Bois and Aretha. It is about protecting the institutions that transformed us. And it is about being keepers of the tradition in a time when truth itself is contested. Most of all, it is a reflection on what Mother Genna Rae McNeil taught us: that truth is on the way—and that we carry it forward together.  Sources:   * A selection of Dr. Harold’s work: When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hip Eras [https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p085475] (2020); New Negro Politics in the Jim Crow South [https://www.ugapress.org/9780820354767/new-negro-politics-in-the-jim-crow-south/] (2016); and How Can I Ever Be Late [https://letterboxd.com/film/how-can-i-ever-be-late/] (2017) and Sugarcoated Arsenic [https://letterboxd.com/film/sugarcoated-arsenic/] (2014) [short films co-directed with Kevin Everson].  * Select sources cited: Toni Cade Bambara, The Black Woman: An Anthology [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Black-Woman/Toni-Cade-Bambara/9780743476973] (1970); Vincent Harding There is a River [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/there-is-a-river-vincent-harding?variant=39939201761314] (1981); Bettye Collier-Thomas Sisters in the Struggle [https://nyupress.org/9780814716038/sisters-in-the-struggle/] (2001); and Octavia Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/213839/bloodchild-and-other-stories-by-octavia-e-butler/] (1995).  * Key artists invoked (add to your playlists if you haven’t already!): Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace [https://www.discogs.com/master/209416-Aretha-Franklin-With-James-Cleveland-The-Southern-California-Community-Choir-Amazing-Grace] (1972); John P. Kee, The Essential John P. Kee [https://www.discogs.com/release/19322659-John-P-Kee-The-Essential-John-P-Kee?srsltid=AfmBOopuGfPVw1jHICQfSG14lkG94mPWzEIR_0aJ57-0mdyvW3jNdaRf] (2007); and Shirley Caesar, The Ultimate Collection [https://www.discogs.com/release/14974489-Shirley-Caesar-Shirley-Caesar-The-Ultimate-Collection] (2011).

S2E5: This Is Actually Serious w/Joshua Myers

In this essential Black History Month conversation, Stone Written host Dr. Rhon sits down with Dr. Joshua Myers, Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Howard University and author of Of Black Study, to reflect on what Black intellectual traditions offer in our current political moment. Recorded in December 2024 but strikingly resonant today, the episode explores Black Studies not as abstraction or nostalgia, but as preparation for living, struggling, and organizing through crisis.  Grounded in the wisdom of ancestors such as June Jordan and Cedric Robinson, the episode interrogates the myths surrounding Black presence in the academy and calls for solidarity networks rooted in trust rather than transaction. Dr. Myers reminds us that Black Study lives everywhere—in our labor, our creativity, our relationships—and remains essential for navigating crisis toward collective liberation.    Sources:  * Select works by Joshua Myers: Of Black Study [https://www.plutobooks.com/product/of-black-study/] (Pluto Press, 2023); Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition [https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=cedric-robinson-the-time-of-the-black-radical-tradition--9781509537914] (Polity, 2021); We are Worth Fighting For: A History of the Howard University Student Protest of 1989 [https://nyupress.org/9781479811755/we-are-worth-fighting-for/] (NYU Press, 2019); A Gathering Together [https://www.agatheringtogether.com/] (literary journal)  * Select texts mentioned in the episode: Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition [https://uncpress.org/9781469663722/black-marxism-revised-and-updated-third-edition/], 3rd edition (UNC Press, 2021); Richard Iton, In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-search-of-the-black-fantastic-9780195178463?cc=us&lang=en&#:~:text=--Robert%20Gooding-Williams%2C%20Ralph%20and%20Mary%20Otis%20Isham,Center%20for%20African%20American%20Studies%2C%20Princeton%20University.] (Oxford University Press, 2008); Cheryl Higashida, Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995 [https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p079641] (Illinois Press, 2013); Anna Julia Cooper, A Vice from teh South; Erica R. Edwards, The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of US Empire [https://nyupress.org/9781479808434/the-other-side-of-terror/] (NYU Press, 2021); June Jordan, “Bringing Back the Person,” in Life as Activism: June Jordan’s Writings from the Progressive, [https://litwinbooks.com/books/life-as-activism/] edited by Stacy Russo with a Foreword by Angela Davis (Litwin Books, 2014).  * Additional source: SNCC Legacy Project [https://sncclegacyproject.org/]