For the smart and free-thinking, Black Market Reads is a podcast featuring conversations with today's most exciting Black literary voices. We are a podcast for any one who loves to read, write, and engage. Black Market Reads is a project of The Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
*Originally released January 2018 In this episode, Lissa Jones speaks with Twin Cites based actress, comedian, and educator Joy Dolo of Blackout Improv. Dolo is a founding member of Blackout, Minnesota’s first and only all-Black improv ensemble whose performances use sketch comedy, improv, and stand-up to tackle current events, race, and social justice issues. Listen: …
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*Originally released December 2017 In the season three premier, host Lissa Jones sits down with retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page to discuss his children's books, advocacy work, and optimism. Listen: http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/6014004 Justice Alan Page is widely recognized for his groundbreaking legal career, as well as for his time in the NFL. Page played …
*Originally released August 2017 Author and Historian Duchess Harris returns to Black Market Reads, this time to speak with host Lissa Jones about her newest book Race and Policing, as well as a newly announced multi-book Duchess Harris Collection from Abdo Publishing. Duchess and Lissa discuss the complex history of race, policing, and force in america. …
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*Originally released July 2017 Listen: http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5580944 In this episode, host Lissa Jones speaks with Erica Armstrong Dunbar about her recent work, Never Caught: The Washington's Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave Ona Judge. We reached her by phone in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dunbar is an author and historian focusing on the experiences of African American women in the context …
*Originally released July 2017 Listen: http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5531123 In this episode, host Lissa Jones talks with author/musician James McBride at Minneapolis' Ivy Hotel. McBride is the author of five books including Miracle at St. Anna, which McBride adapted for the Spike Lee-directed film of the same name released in 2008. His most recent novel, The Good Lord …
*Originally released June 2017 Listen: http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5486278 A frequent contributor to the opinion pages of both Twin Cities dailies as well as the local Black press, Dr. Mahmoud El-Kati has published dozens of monographs and pamphlets, and has appeared on Minnesota Public Radio, and at a host of community-based conferences and events. From 1970 to 2003, Professor …
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*Originally released June 2017 We are joined by Minnesota writers Carolyn Holbrook and David Lawrence Grant to discuss the creative process and how the past informs their work and activism. Holbrook and Grant each contributed an essay to the collection A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota which was published by Minnesota Historical Society Press …
*Originally released May 2017 In this episode, host Lissa Jones explores what it means to love the skin you're in. Listen: http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5382252 First, she speaks with author Sharon G. Flake, whose 1998 novel, The Skin I'm In, influenced and inspired a generation of young women. Then, Lissa talks with Twin Cities artist Robin Hickman, who created a curriculum …
*Originally released February 2017 In her debut as host of Black Market Reads, Lissa Jones sits down with Macalester College professor and author Duchess Harris to discuss her new book Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA. This might sound familiar to listeners - the stories told in Harris's book, and stories like them, inspired the …
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