"My mind ain't sprightly like it used to be and heaps of things what went on when I was young, I forget and heaps of them what I want to forget, I can't." Calline Brown from the WPA ex-slave narratives, Coahoma County, MS in the collection of Archie Givens Sr. Collection of African American Literature and Life …
From the Archives: Rachel Howzell Hall, They All Fall Down
In anticipation of the 5th Annual Wordplay Festival at the Loft in Minneapolis, MN. For fans of thrilling contemporary suspense, Rachel Howzell Hall’s brilliant stand-alone novel brings seven sinners to a private island for a reckoning that will leave you breathless. It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. Danger lurks in the lush …
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Santi Elijah Holley, An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created
"The family itself is a tribe of people who are committed, who've taken the name out of a loyalty, out of faith, out of unity. And they are all coming together as a family... Just because we're not all blood doesn't make us any less of a family." Santi Elijah Holley “An Amerikan Family is a …
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Charlayne Hunter-Gault, My People – Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives
"I think that you'll have taught our history as our armor, that Black people are more than the sum of our traumas or tragedies. That Black history is the way, and a path to look back. I think that we will remember how to be good to each other and how to speak well of …
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Shaun M. Anderson, The Black Athlete Revolt: The Sport Justice Movement in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter
"We just wanna live. We wanna go out and enjoy our lives. We don't wanna talk about this all the time. We gonna talk about it when it's happening, but we are trying to build, we're trying to love, we're trying to have our families, we're trying to eat good. We're trying to travel the …
Pearl Cleage: Blues for An Alabama Sky
"We sit in the dark around the campfire and we listen to someone tell us the stories of our tribe, and we've been doing that as humans forever... And you can call it theater, call it film, call it whatever. We have to, there's no other way to know what's important, what's beautiful, what's courageous, …
BONUS Episode: Dr. Clarence Lusane returns
Celebrating Black History Month, Lissa was invited by Books & Books in Miami to interview Dr. Clarence Lusane about his recent work, Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy, (City Lights 2023). Join us for this in depth conversation linking past to present. https://givensbmr.libsyn.com/bonus-episode-dr-clarence-lusane-returns Link to purchase the …
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Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run – a novel
"We are just a stepping stone away from being back in 1964, if you think that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was gonna be it and it was gonna stop there, I would bet you a mortgage payment, you're wrong. The gist of the book is if you don't vote, then you're part of …
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Clarence Lusane, Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy
"There should be a fear of us moving towards a full blown authoritarian state. We shouldn't be under the illusion that it's never happened here and that there's no experience of people not having democratic rights. It absolutely has happened. So, how do we combat and mobilize around preventing the country from going further and …
BONUS OPPORTUNITY: Signifyin’ and Testifyin’ Black Storytellers Alliance presents the 32nd Annual Black Master Storytellers Festival
Three amazing events, 3 venues, family friendly. Different stories every night. Visit Black Storytellers Alliance https://livestream.com/accounts/3288636/events/10598262/player?width=640&height=360&enableInfoAndActivity=true&defaultDrawer=&autoPlay=true&mute=false Livestream provided in partnership with iDream.tv http://www.iDream.tv - A Multimedia Production Company