As NBAF approaches 40, it reimagines its place in Atlanta’s arts scene

For nearly four decades, the National Black Arts Festival has helped make Atlanta a destination for Black art and culture.

At its height, the festival stretched across several days and venues, filling the city with performances, exhibitions, screenings and conversations celebrating Black creativity.

But Atlanta’s arts landscape has changed.

NBAF has weathered leadership transitions, fundraising challenges and growing competition for audiences and support. Now, as the organization approaches its 40th anniversary, president and CEO Leatrice Ellzy is trying to determine what one of Atlanta’s signature Black cultural institutions should become next.

“We are in the process of understanding who we’ve been, who we will be, what’s the civic role that Black institutions play and looking at what our next steps are as we grow into ourselves into the future,” Ellzy said.

That reinvention will be on display Sunday, when NBAF hosts its second annual Fall for Brunch at Hotel Phoenix Atlanta.

The fundraiser will feature live and silent auctions, performances, a plated meal and works for sale from Atlanta’s ZuCot Gallery.

Entertainment is being provided by DJ and radio personality Frank Ski, harpists from Drew Charter School, poet Adan Bean, CommUnity ATL Choir, and a keynote speech about the importance of arts and culture from painter Fahamu Pecou.

“We’re going to start with art and end with art, because that’s what we do. Everything is A-T-L, and we’re keeping it in the family,” Ellzy said. “It (the event) focuses on (our) mission, why we exist and what is the responsibility all of us have to invest in organizations like ours. We will all be inspired by that work, but we’re also going to have a good time.”

NBAF was founded in 1987 by the Fulton County Arts Council to showcase the talents of Black artists across music, visual, performing arts and literature. The first festival was held a year later.

The first Fall for Brunch was held at InterContinental Buckhead Hotel last year as a litmus test to welcome supporters and donors.

“They (the NBAF board) wanted to shift and find some other ways people are generating revenue for institutions. They wanted to do something in a slightly lower price point that would really invite in a younger demographic and new people into the NBAF family,” Ellzy said. “We set the tone, but it’s the people who create the excitement.”

This isn’t Ellzy’s first role with NBAF.

In 2002, she joined the nonprofit organization as a producer and became director of artistic programming three years later.

“The way the festival operated in the past has always been a group sport. We curated and presented, but the fullness of the festival and the whole city to be taken over was because of Horizon Theatre (Company), High Museum of Art and our collaborators doing what they did,” Ellzy said.

Ellzy stayed at the NBAF until 2012.

She later became executive director of Atlanta’s Hammonds House Museum and senior director of programming at Apollo Theater in New York.

She returned to NBAF in 2025.

“Every place that I go, people are so loving, putting their arms around me and saying how happy they are I’m back in the city,” Ellzy said. “That’s been very beautiful, and I get a little choked up about it.”

NBAF board chair Lisa Bonner said Ellzy was selected because of her past relationship with the organization and Atlanta’s arts scene.

“We wanted someone with substantial arts experience leading the organization,” Bonner said.

“She’s familiar with the history of NBAF, has an eye to the future, and someone who’s in the arts community as a whole,” Bonner said. “She understood the festival was a different time and era, and we cannot re-create the past. We have to really envision what new NBAF looks like.”

In Ellzy’s first year at the helm of NBAF, she spent time getting reacquainted with Atlanta artists, curators and venues.

“This is a very different Atlanta than when I left, and I’ve been surprised by that,” she said. “We’re not even the same player in the ecosystem as we have been, but what NBAF always has going for it is that our legacy is too strong.”

“It takes a minute to turn the ship around, but I spent this first year getting my arms around Atlanta and trying to determine a pathway to get to where we want to go.”

NBAF is currently in conversation with several foundations including the Duke Foundation to collaborate on programs that NBAF can support.

She is also working with the NBAF board to curate and organize festival programming.

“We’ve always punched above our weight as Black people, and we’re still defining that space,” she said. “Art is about memory, but we’re still paying homage and remembering the path because that’s the platform we stand on.”

For Ellzy, the goal isn’t to re-create the National Black Arts Festival she remembers. It’s to determine what role the institution should play in Atlanta’s next era of Black arts and culture.

“We’re about to turn 40 years old, so what does the next 40 years look like and how do we sustain ourselves for the next 100 years?” she said. “We were the standard-bearer, and the absence of that standard is palpable. We have to create what the new standard is, and we are very much up for that task.”