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.
“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 …
" Invisibility is one of racism's strongest tools. Racism is most powerful when we don't see it.” Dr. Rob Eschmann From cell phone footage of police killing unarmed Black people to leaked racist messages and even comments from friends and family on social media, online communication exposes how racism operates in a world that pretends …
Continue reading "Rob Eschmann, When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Digital Age"
"Fiction is all conflict and tension and making your characters uncomfortable and seeing what they do with that uncomfortableness. I can't imagine writing a police procedural set in Chicago and not talk about race." Tracy Clark In this episode Lissa talks with author Tracy Clark about Fall, the second book in her Detective Harriet Foster thriller series, weaving …
"It's important to be your authentic self. If you're not you, the world doesn't know who to love." Jody Lulich Rising to accept a prestigious award, Jody Lulich wondered what to say. Explain how he’d been attracted to veterinary medicine? Describe how caring for helpless, voiceless animals in his own shame and pain provided a …
"You know, friends, much has been made about whether George Floyd's heart was enlarged, whether it was too big. But the real question here, and the real fact, is that Derek Chauvin's heart was too small." Keith Ellison Lissa talks with MN Attorney General and author Keith Ellison about his experience with the trial of …
Continue reading "Keith Ellison, Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence"
"To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way." June Jordan In this episode, Lissa talks with writer Sherrie Fernandez-Williams about her latest work, Goddess of the Whole Self (In Line Press 2023), her inspirations, and her origin story. The Remembrance …
Continue reading "Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, Goddess of the Whole Self"
"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 …
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 …
Continue reading "From the Archives: Rachel Howzell Hall, They All Fall Down"
"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 …
Continue reading "Santi Elijah Holley, An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created"
"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"