NBAF in turmoil as leaders resign amid ‘destructive’ board

The National Black Arts Festival, one of the nation’s premier Black arts organizations, fights for its life as top leadership resigns and board dysfunction erupts into public view.

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When reached by telephone on Sunday, National Black Arts Festival (NBAF) Artistic Director Oronike Odeleye spoke in a voice raw not only from a cold but also from expressing the urgency of a crisis currently engulfing the organization: Both of its top leaders have tendered their resignations, leaving the organization with an uncertain future.

“NBAF is an organization that belongs to the people of Atlanta,” said Odeleye. “So it’s devastating that I won’t be able to continue to bring all of my knowledge, resources and expertise to this organization, because it cannot be what it once was with the current board and board leadership that it has.”

The National Black Arts Festival is a multi-arts organization founded in 1987 by the Fulton County Arts Council. Its first festival was held in 1988. The most recent festival was held in about 2013, and, since that time, NBAF has produced smaller year-round events in lieu of a major biennial event.

At its height, NBAF became an internationally recognized cultural event with a citation from Congress in 2008 as a major contributor to the “cultural fabric of greater Atlanta and all of America,” according to the organization’s website. The festival has featured artists such as Maya Angelou, Wynton Marsalis, Carrie Mae Weems, Angie Stone and Nikki Giovanni, among others. Odeleye says that she was hired with the mission to build the organization back toward producing a biennial event.

Odeleye tendered her resignation to the board on February 3, after two-and-a-half years of overseeing and shaping the organization’s arts programming, including key events such as 2024’s SOULREBELROCK concert series and the recent Legacy in Motion: Lines, Steps & Strolls event.

The revelation comes within days of the announced departure of Executive Director Stephanie Owens after five years of leading fundraising and institutional partnerships while at the helm of the organization. Owens and Odeleye together constitute the entire top tier of the organization’s small, seven-person staff.

In internal documents obtained by ArtsATL, both Odeleye and Owens cited actions by the NBAF board of directors — identifying alleged actions specifically by Board Chair Lisa Bonner — as critical to their individual decisions to leave the organization. Bonner is an Atlanta-based author, speaker and entertainment lawyer.

In her letter of resignation dated February 3, Odeleye characterized Bonner’s leadership as “destructive,” alleging that Bonner, who became board chair in June 2024, has “orchestrated a deliberate campaign of internal misinformation to paint a narrative of NBAF and its leadership as unstable and failing.”

Owens, in a letter of resignation dated December 23, 2024, alleged that her efforts to run the organization “have been consistently undervalued and undermined by the actions and behavior of board leadership in recent months.”

Odeleye claims to have significantly expanded NBAF’s programming and audience reach during her tenure, and also cites Owens as having secured major funding and partnerships even in a reduced funding environment. “She came within 2% of our fundraising goals,” said Odeleye.

ArtsATL has not independently verified NBAF’s finances. However, a review of internal fundraising documents lends credence to Odeleye’s account of the situation.

Specific allegations leveled at the board by staff include dereliction of fiduciary duty as the board has allegedly failed to participate fully in fundraising activities, as well as board overreach, as the board has attempted to exert undue influence on the organization’s arts programming, according to Odeleye.

These actions, the staff members allege, have contributed to a hostile work environment with rank-and-file staff members caught in the crossfire of high-stakes standoffs between the board and staff leadership.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, one staff member noted that the tensions between leadership and the board were “apparent” to lower-level staff, resulting in a tense work environment. However, this staff member also noted that tensions were apparent to staff even before Lisa Bonner’s tenure as board chair began.

Bonner responded to a request for comment through the board’s lawyer with a statement reading in part: “Neither the board nor its members publicly comment on internal personnel matters. However, I can confirm that this board remains fully committed to its mission, financial stability and responsible governance during this transition.”

Owens declined to comment for this story, citing confidentiality concerns.

In an attempt to resolve workplace tensions, NBAF’s Advisory Council — which is made up of prominent community members such as former city of Atlanta Director of Cultural Affairs Camille Russell Love and former board chair Tracey Lloyd — sought to compel the current board to underwrite an investigation of allegations of a hostile work environment among other allegations, pursuant to the organization’s whistleblower policy, according to a February 14 letter to the board obtained by ArtsATL.

However, a response from the board one week later stated that the Advisory Council had no standing to compel an investigation and that no formal complaint had been made by staff, and therefore the board considered the matter resolved.

The turmoil comes at a particularly bad time for the organization, given the changing national landscape in arts funding. The National Endowment for the Arts, for example, has required that grant applicants must not “operate any programs promoting ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI) that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws.” According to Odeleye, this requirement has led to a general chilling effect in arts funding for minority organizations like NBAF.

“It’s hard enough to do all the work that we’re doing,” said Odeleye. “It’s especially hard to do it right now as a Black-led and Black-focused nonprofit in Trump’s America. I can’t also fight the board to do this work.”

With its top leadership departing, a staff under fire and a board in apparent stasis, NBAF stands at a critical and uncertain juncture. The staff member speaking anonymously had long surmised that NBAF’s internal problems would eventually become public and was not surprised when approached by ArtsATL for comment. “This had to come out eventually to be addressed at the community level,” the person said. “It’s a community organization with a legacy.”

Odeleye, who grew up attending the biennial festival, concurs. “[It is] the work organizations like NBAF put in over 20 and 30 years ago that have made Atlanta a Black mecca and Black home for arts and culture.”

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Cinqué Hicks is editor-in-chief of ArtsATL.