Stone Written

Twenty years ago, scholars at UT Austin drafted a five-page manifesto that imagined Black studies as more than a field — as a framework for liberation. Today, as universities restructure departments, discontinue majors, and reshape the conditions under which we teach and learn, those words hit different. 

In this episode, Dr. Rhon returns to The Austin School Manifesto: An Approach to the Black or African Diaspora — a call for activist research, Black feminist praxis, and intellectual work that refuses to separate thinking from living. Read against the backdrop of department consolidations at UT Austin, shifting institutional priorities at UNC Chapel Hill, and a national climate of political scrutiny over race, gender, and sexuality in higher education, the manifesto reminds us that our fields were never simply granted. They were demanded. 

Manifestos aren't relics. They're living calls. And twenty years later, they still move. 

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Dr. Rhon opens season three of Stone Written by unpacking a phrase that’s stuck with her all year: Black studies was “born moving.” Tracing the field's movement roots, she makes the case for the Sonja Haynes Stone Center as an academic and cultural institution — not an “affinity center” — and explores what it takes to sustain that mission today. Along the way, she reflects on Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone’s legacy, the false choice between movement and institutional stability, and why she's inviting listeners to become stewards of the Stone Center's future. Part reflection, part call to action, this episode sets the tone for a season about memory, purpose, and moving forward without losing who you are. 

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In this episode of Stone Written, Dr. Rhon sits down with Kara Endsley, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center's first full-time Philanthropy Officer, for a candid conversation about fundraising, legacy, and the urgent work of securing the Stone Center's future. 

Kara brings over 30 years of fundraising experience — and a deeply personal connection to this mission. Together, she and Dr. Rhon pull back the curtain on the real challenges facing the Stone Center: limited resources, disenchanted alumni, and the repair work needed to rebuild trust with a community that has every reason to be skeptical. 

But this episode is also a call to action. With a bold $25 million campaign underway and the fiscal year closing in, now is the time to show up. Whether it's $20 a month or $20,000 — your investment is your vote for the Stone Center's survival and its legacy for generations to come. 

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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. 

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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. 

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Jaha Nailah Avery, I Heard: An American Journey (Penguin Random House, 2024) 

Jaha Nailah Avery, Those Who Saw the Sun: African American Oral Histories from the Jim Crow South (Levine Querido, 2023). 

A selection of Jaha's public works:

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 

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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. 

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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. 

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In a deeply intimate conversation, Stone Written host Dr. Rhon (@DoctorRMB) sits down with grammy nominated American jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon to discuss her new book and album, exploring how jazz improvisation, deep listening, and ancestral presence shaped her journey through loss.

They reflect on grief’s non-linear nature, the healing power of creativity and community, and the ways memory, music, and everyday rituals open pathways from sorrow to hope.

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On International Podcast Day (September 30th), Stone Written celebrates the power of storytelling at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Research in Black Culture and History. Host Dr. Rhon shares seven lessons she’s learned since stepping into her role at UNC–Chapel Hill, from why “those who know, know” isn’t enough, to how platforms like this one help us tell our story before someone else gets it wrong. This episode is a brief but timely love letter to the stories that shape us—and to the people who make them worth telling.

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