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.
“To divorce the history of slavery from these narratives is a disservice to us, to our history, to our understanding of the world.”-Vanessa Riley Inspired by the true story of Jacquotte Delahaye—a 17th-century free woman of color who rose to become one of the most feared pirates in the Caribbean—FIRE SWORD AND SEA (HarperCollins 2026) follows …
“It’s important for young Black people to see those who came before them — people who did extraordinary things and were not limited by what the world expected of them.” -Ethelene Whitmire The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram by Ethelene Whitmire tells the true story of Reed Peggram, a brilliant Black, queer Harvard scholar who went …
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Black Market Reads, the podcast produced by the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, proudly announces the release of its 100th episode, marking a decade of conversations with Black authors and artists whose work shapes the cultural landscape of Minnesota and beyond. Hosted by Lissa Jones, the 100th episode is an expansive, deeply moving celebration …
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Recorded before a live audience at the Capri Theater in North Minneapolis, Lissa talks with author Karen Nance about her latest book Ethel Ray: Living in the White, Gray, and Black, published by In Black Ink 2024 Ethel Ray Nance was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota, where her family lived a life filled with …
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"If we didn't have health inequities any longer, if everybody were getting the same amount of care, we'd still need to know this history, but it wouldn't be as urgent. I think the fact that Black women still experience disproportionately higher rates of maternal morbidity is relevant. We need to know why that is. We …
“If we are not maladjusted to this situation, something is wrong with us.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Unteachables (University of Minnesota Press 2023) examines the overrepresentation of Black students in special education over the course of the twentieth century. Excavating the deep-seated racism embedded in both the public school system and public policy, Mayes …
"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 …
"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 …
Continue reading "Charlayne Hunter-Gault, My People – Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives"
"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 …
“How can I be unarmed when it is my blackness you fear," writes Carol Anderson in her latest work, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). This episode was recorded as part of a live event in anticipation of the release of Carol Anderson’s latest Book The Second: hosted by …