By Vickie Oldham
I love my job. In it, I use all of the skills gleaned since my first job as a teenager. The strange thing is, where I am now professionally is the result of a painful career transition. The shift pushed me to redefine my mission and life goals after leaving a television station where I had what some considered a “dream job.” As a reporter, show host and producer, I relished the opportunity to meet powerbrokers. I later became over-the-top ecstatic when the station manager called a meeting to discuss a new, half-hour Sunday morning show. After that meeting, panic and fear set in. Was I equipped to handle the task, I asked myself. As a dyed-in-the-wool advocate “for the people,” hosting a show about community issues was ideal. I developed a vision for the program. Not only would it include discussions with local heroes and she-roes, but also celebrity guests. The inaugural show featured my first interview with Dr. Maya Angelou (I’ve had 3 since then). The program with the author, “global renaissance woman” and President Clinton’s inaugural poet set the tone for more than 10 years of fascinating interviews with actors such as Halle Berry, Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg; entertainers B.B. King, Ben Vereen, Aretha Franklin, Eartha Kitt and Smokey Robinson; authors Terry McMillan, Dr. Derrick Bell, bell hooks; and civil rights activist John Lewis. I interviewed 100 trailblazers in entertainment, education and business.
Fast forward to 2002. That’s when I was hit with a transition that pushed me into redefining my identity and seeking a new career direction. Work as a freelancer had been satisfying. My contacts in the business tapped me for many and varied assignments. But little did I know the impact of an upcoming project looming on the horizon.
I was contracted to produce a documentary about the history of my hometown. In the research process, I stumbled across a little-known, unreported story about the courage, sacrifice and determination of runaway slaves escaping plantations in Georgia, Alabama and other parts of the south. The escapees established in 1812 a safe haven near my community. They called it Angola. The settlers thrived until their community was torched. This 1800’s “Rosewood” story doesn’t end with death, destruction and despair. Some of the men, women and children survived a fiery raid in 1821, made their way to south Florida and crossed the dangerous gulfstream to land in Red Bays on Andros Island in The Bahamas. Again, faced with transition, they overcame and their descendants are alive today.
The story of Angola had a profound impact. I don’t use that term lightly. The message to me: “Never, never give up” and “find a way, make a way.” I heard the mantra morning, noon and in my sleep. Sometimes, it kept me awake. The message of determination, enterprise and survival played over and over in my head, offering a healing tone. It encouraged me when I lacked direction and struggled to find career satisfaction.
The message took such a hold that I decided the Angola story needed to be told. Encased in dusty journals and scholarly papers, it was known only to a few scholars, but its lessons about how to deal with transitions was especially applicable for me and would be for countless others. I set out to produce a documentary short. Soon, the project ballooned into a multi-disciplinary effort that now includes underground and underwater archaeology (to find artifacts of the lost settlement), public lectures, historical research, a website, educational programs for teachers and students in a tri-county school district, a documentary and a cultural exchange program between American and Bahamian students.
I’ve raised more than $400,000 in grants, in-kind contributions and organized a team of scholars in history, archaeology and anthropology to preserve the history of Angola. A $500,000 archaeology lab is now under construction on the New College of Florida campus, a direct result of the project. Florida Congressman Tony Hill is working to make Red Bays a cultural tourism destination and list it as a site on the Underground Railroad.
Just when the Angola project was gaining momentum and garnering local, regional, national and international media attention (the BBC carried a story in English and Portuguese), I was asked to plan an event for an energetic, new college president with a boat load of ideas about how to save his alma mater, a sinking ship when it came to student enrollment and staff morale. The Florida history scholar heard about my Angola work and in July, 2006 requested that I join his leadership team after the freelance assignment was completed.
I had no plans to leave a new home, my independent projects, work hours I could set, as well as the incredible fulfillment derived from “Looking for Angola.” The project plugged the hole in my heart. But I accepted the job at Fort Valley State University, not knowing the U.S. economy was about to tank. The Angola project came with me. I organized it, wrote grants and coordinated the schedules of 5 scholars after hours and long weekends between Georgia and Florida. Be flexible. It’s an Angola lesson that had become all too familiar.
The job as marketing director at Fort Valley State University is rewarding. I’m using every skill I learned in life about public relations, marketing, promotions and advertising. Student enrollment has almost doubled since the new president and team arrived. New building construction has increased dramatically. FVSU is on a roll now, and I’m proud to say I had something to do with it. I manage a small staff and have access to the president who allows me freedom to develop and execute marketing plans and programs as I see fit (given my budget). I had no idea that a painful career transition and reinvention would point me in the direction I needed to go next. I wouldn’t have complained, gotten aggravated and fretted so much if I only could have seen my destiny.
