African American Storytelling featuring North Carolina Association of Black Storytellers

Saturday, March 25

2:00PM – 3:30PM

FREE Family Friendly Event

Click here to reserve your spot!

The North Carolina Association of Black Storytellers, Inc., NCABS,  promotes and perpetuates the art of Black Storytelling, an art form that embodies the history and cultures of Africans and African Americans, especially those in North Carolina.

NCABS preserves, protects, and passes on the historical truths, folklore, legends, myths, and fables  important to  African American traditions.

NCABS members represent the entire state of North Carolina. They hail from the Smokey Mountains to the Outer Banks, and enjoy many professions. They are teachers, ministers,  parents, musicians, drummers, librarians, flight attendants, students and even retirees!  The group frequently performs around the state at schools and local public librarians for Juneteenth and Kwanzaa, at festivals, conferences and symposiums, and for civic celebrations and family events.

Meet the Storytellers:

   Obakunle Akinlana

Obakunle Akinlana is a storyteller who uses drums, shekeres, and other musical instruments to present fun and exciting traditional African folktales. Obakunle Akinlana has performed as a storyteller, musician, lecturer and percussionist throughout the United States and West Africa. His performances are thoughtful, entertaining and exciting. Audiences explore authentic Yoruba artifacts, play instruments and enjoy traditional dancing during audience participation. Through the beauty of African stories, music, culture and dance Obakunle Akinlana inspires communities to come together in One Heart, One Love, One Peace, One World.

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   Michael D. Connor – College Professor (retired)/ Actor/Orator

Michael D. Connor, a professor of theater arts at Livingstone College in Salisbury, was inducted into the United Negro College Fund/Livingstone College Leaders Hall of Fame. He has appeared in “General Hospital,” “The Color Purple,” “Homeland” and “Hunger Games.” The playwright and director has worked on Broadway, while studying playwriting at the Negro Ensemble Co., as well as, working in Hollywood where he wrote a play about Bette Davis, for whom he served as a personal assistant.

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   Teri A. Burnette

Teri A. Burnette is an independent filmmaker, and (recent) past Mass Communications Chair/professor at Paine College, Augusta, Ga., and currently servei as film instructor at an Arts and Science Charter School in Wilson, NC.   Burnette received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications from St. Augustine’s (College) University in Raleigh, NC (2000), and her MFA Degree  in Film Production (2004) from Howard University, Washington, DC.  During her years at Howard, she was a student of award-winning writer/ producer/ independent filmmaker Haile Gerima, and studied scriptwriting with filmmaker / pioneer hip-hop activist/ artist Michael Holman and sound with multi-award winning writer and producer of features and documentaries for National Public Radio, Public Radio International and the Smithsonian Institution, Sonja Williams. As a student filmmaker at Howard Univ, Burnette was awarded the prestigious “Paul Robeson Award” for Best Film Direction, and her student thesis (animated) film “Gloomy Gyrl” also, won for “Best Cinematography.” After graduate school, her original film “Gloomy Gyrl” was received by nine film festivals, including internationally, at the Fespeco Film Festival in Burkina Faso, West Africa. This film has been accepted/adopted by mental health professionals and domestic violence shelters, as a tool to assist women in need of therapy and physical protection. Burnette has enjoyed nearly two decades of teaching in the field of Mass Communications in the (3) three HBCU college settings and currently shares her wisdom at an exemplary Arts and Science Charter School in WIlson, NC.  While juggling academic duties with her personal artistic passions,  Burnette continues to write and work on her own private film projects, as well as her professional interests. While teaching at Edward Waters College, she released her third film, “Honey Boy,” a story performed and told by world-renowned Storyteller (the late) Jackie Torrence. “Honey Boy” (the short film) has been screened at the North Carolina Black Film Festival (Wilmington, NC), at the National Black Theatre Festival (Winston Salem, NC), and at the Hayti Heritage Film Festival (Durham, NC). Currently, Burnette is completing edits on a documentary on Central High School in Hillsborough, NC, (circa 1964) with director Iris Chapman. She is also working on two full-length screenplays and three short film scripts.

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   Beverly Fields Burnette

Beverly Fields Burnette is a Storyteller (current President of the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers, Inc), a published poet, a retired School Social Worker/Elementary Guidance Counselor, and the mother of two adult daughters, who are both educators. Burnette is a great admirer/lover of poetry, short stories, history, genealogy and anthropology. Born in Rocky Mount, NC, Burnette, the older of two children, she relished hearing family stories and loved eaves dropping in on the talk of the grown folks around her. These family and community stories sealed Burnette’s early storytelling interest, as well as her desire to pursue the genealogy of her family. She has been a consistent hunter of her ancestors…from the NC mountains to the NC Coast for over three decades, and has written and published historical memoirs and poems. She  employs poetry and storytelling as vehicles for teaching family connections, African American history, creating positive feelings, healing wounds, and bridging gaps. Burnette is a founding member of both the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective,  and the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers, Inc. ; a member (30+ years) of the Washington Street Writers, as well as The National Assoc. of Black Storytellers,  Inc. She enjoys performing stories in the guise of Harlem Renaissance folklorist/anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston,  and has been published in several national publications. Burnette has called Raleigh “home” since the early 1970s.