Honoring a Life of Storytelling: Accepting the NABS Zora Neale Hurston Award on Behalf of Dr. William H. Turner
By Jim Embry
As a recipient of the 2024-2025 Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship, I had the honor of attending and presenting a workshop at the 43rd Annual National Black Storytellers Conference and Festival, held in Atlanta from November 19–23, 2025. The festival theme, “Journeys Well Traveled: Preserving the Oral Tradition of the African Diaspora,” could not have been more fitting.
While the conference itself was inspiring, the most humbling and meaningful moment for me was being asked to accept the NABS Zora Neale Hurston Award on behalf of my dear friend, Dr.William H.Turner, who was unable to attend in person. Standing before the exquisitely adorned assembly to receive his beautifully crafted glass plaque and offer remarks was both an honor and a responsibility that I carried with deep gratitude.
I opened my remarks by quoting Alex Haley: “Bill knows more about Black people in the mountains of the American South—Appalachia—than anyone in the world.” These words felt especially fitting. Early in his career, from 1979 to 1991, Dr.Turner served as a research associate to Haley during the years following the publication of Roots. His scholarly rigor and commitment to truth have long shaped how Black Appalachian history is understood and preserved.
In my brief remarks, I also acknowledged Dr. Turner’s friendships and collaborations with distinguished thinkers and storytellers, including Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Cornel West, and Kentucky’s own, bell hooks—relationships that reflect both his intellectual reach and his deep grounding in community.
Accepting this award was also a profoundly personal moment. Our friendship began in 1967 at the University of Kentucky, where Bill, then a senior, stepped naturally into the role of mentor to me as a young freshman. Our shared commitment to student activism led us, together, to serve as funeral marshals at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral in 1968, escorting the casket laden wagon pulled by mules, Belle and Ada, from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Nearly six decades later, our bond remains rooted in respect, shared struggle, and enduring love.
A native of Lynch, Kentucky, in Harlan County, Dr. Turner is the grandson and son of coal miners and was raised in a vibrant Black community within a coal town. His life’s work has consistently illuminated these often-overlooked communities. He has held numerous academic leadership roles, including Interim President of Kentucky State University and Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Studies at Berea College. In 1985, he co-edited the groundbreaking text Blacks in Appalachia, and in 2021 he published his award-winning memoir, Harlan Renaissance: Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns which received the Weatherford Award for Nonfiction, among others.
Dr. Turner’s life has truly been a journey well-traveled. His tireless work preserving the written and oral traditions of Black Appalachians embodies the very spirit of the 2025 NABS Festival theme.
Alongside Dr. William H. Turner, the 2025 recipients of the NABS Zora Neale Hurston Award included:
- Clarence “Baba Simba” Mollock, a member of Griots Circle of Maryland
- Valerie Tutson, co-founder and Executive Director of Rhode Island Black Storytellers. and festival Director of Funda Fest.
- Carol Alexander, Executive Director of Jacksonville’s Ritz Theatre and Museum and President and Chief Creative Officer of Mabu.
- Carolyn Carroll, NABS registration volunteer and member of Griots Circle of Maryland
- Deborah Pierce Fakunle, co-founder facilitator of Discover Me Recovering Me
Dr. Turner and Mama Linda Goss, NABS co-founder, have also collaborated through their shared work with the “Freedom Stories” project hosted by the International Storytelling Center. Their partnership reflects a mutual commitment to centering Black life in Appalachia and American history. This was powerfully demonstrated during the “Do Black Lives Matter in Appalachia?” virtual panel in July 2020, which opened with a story by Mama Linda Goss and featured scholarly reflections led by Dr. Turner and others.
After the NABS Festival awards ceremony, my final task was a practical one—securely wrapping Bill’s glass plaque and mailing it to his home in Houston. Soon after receiving it, he sent me a photograph showing the award proudly displayed before images of his grandchildren, accompanied by a text message: “The ZNH Award has a special place—in front of photos of my grandchildren’s eyes.”
I replied: “Thank you, my brother, for sharing the photo. I’m pleased to see that the Zora flora adorns your home and allows your grandkids to make sure Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)—novelist, anthropologist, folklorist, and filmmaker—was a towering figure of the Harlem Renaissance whose work celebrated Black culture and oral tradition, even as she died in poverty and obscurity before her genius was fully recognized. Her legacy endures, particularly through her most popular novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
More about her life and work can be found at: https://www.zoranealehurston.com/.
Hurston once wrote, “I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.” That spirit of courage and truth-seeking lives on in Dr. William H. Turner’s scholarship and storytelling.
The legacies of Zora Neale Hurston and Dr. William H. Turner meet in their shared devotion to preserving Black voices and honoring communities too often overlooked by mainstream history. It was truly fortuitous that these legacies were celebrated together at the 2025 NABS Festival, in the presence of an audience committed to carrying these stories forward. For the general public, this moment serves as a reminder that Black storytelling is not merely an art form—it is a lifeline. Through the voices of elders, scholars, and community bearers like Dr. William H. Turner, we are invited to listen more deeply, remember more honestly, and ensure that the stories of Black Appalachia continue to be told, cherished, and passed on to future generations.
“Been to the Mountaintop!” is the title of the keynote presentation that Dr. Turner will deliver at the Forty-Ninth Annual ASA Conference held at Marshall University in Huntington, WV, March 19-21, 2026.
Asante Sana
Jim Embry
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