So everyone’s taking about this year’s Zora Festival.
Last weekend, the Association for the Preservation of the Eatonville Community, (PEC) successfully produced the 27th Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Humanities in Eatonville, Florida
A nine day, myriad of events that included it’s first ever live streaming event in partnership with Rollins College, celebrity podcaster Dr Fred Opie of Babson College, an amazing reception-gallery-talk exhibition with renowned artist Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, a meals included mobile bus tour, Zora’s Cosmos Mobile Tour just to mention a few.
Each year, this event, which ironically grew out of the necessity to preserve what little African American culture the state of Florida has decided to preserve continues to impress with its ability to do so much with so little. After all, it cannot possibly compete with monster truck pulls or gator wrestlin’.
Or can it?
Many in our community wrongly assume that ZORA! Festival is about the 2 or 3 hour shake-your-booty Center Stage event which typically takes place during the outdoor festival.
It is not.
It is about preservation, education and culture. It’s about the high marks of a local, African American woman’s life during a time of murderous racism and the barbarism of Jim Crow. It is about the example set by a woman, a black skinned woman who chose to defy and challenge the institutional racism of her time and go on to become a global legend.
It seems that local folks forget that Eatonville was once sought by white businessmen as the go to destination for adult entertainment, strip clubs, and other nefarious activities for out of town visitors and sailors from the old Navy base once located just a few minutes away.
Local developers didn’t value the people. Eatonvilles legacy as a post Civil War town established by Congress for the children of slaves was meaningless, after all these were only black people. They saw it as only worthy for depravity and decadence for profit and sought to tear it down.
Eatonville said no. Town folk fought this effort to turn their town into a haven for strippers and hookers. They withstood efforts wipe out the historic hometown of an African American woman who was a global phenomenon. Can you imagine the outcry if a group of local business people had organized to tear down Williamsburg, Va and replace it with peep shows and lap dance bars?
Which brings me back to the purpose of writing this piece.
Many have complained that last weekends Center Stage event featuring the Isley Brothers, amongst others did not occur smoothly.
They are correct, it didn’t.
Others have complained that the vendor count was down and could have been set up differently.
They too are correct.
What they are not aware of is that this was not the fault of PEC.
Critics of last weeks entertainment are right to fault the sloppily managed and produced concert. The producers of the event, whose name I will not mention, were anything but professional.
They blew it. Although it was not quite the disaster of Steve Harvey’s, unbelievable globally televised screw-up at the Miss Universe pageant, it was still pretty bad.
Buffoonery comes in all shapes and sizes.
The Center Stage and vending aspects of the 27th Zora Festival were managed by bonafide third parties who purchased the rights to produce and manage the entertainment and vending aspects.
PEC didn’t produce the concert. PEC didn’t hire the bands. It didn’t pick the comedians.
While this doesn’t completely absolve PEC, it does explains some of the anomalies that took place.
Much like the Amway Center or NYCs Madison Garden, PEC hosted an event that involved third party vendors who simply dropped the ball.
This unfortunate occurrence, however, should not take away from the accomplishments of this years festival.
For those with the loudest voices, chill. You know just like I know that there is no such thing as a $10 dollar Isley Brothers ticket.
