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"
"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"
"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"
"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 …
Continue reading "Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run – a novel"
"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 …
“I will never forget the day that I walked into that courthouse and I encountered a group of young boys in the hallway chained together at their arms and legs. I had no idea that we shackled children in contemporary America." The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth, by Kristin Henning (Pantheon) In The …
" To change hearts and minds, we have to touch people's hearts and minds. Some of the most influential changes that have happened in our society come through creative processes...," says Andrea Jenkins in response to Lissa's question about the role of art in her political life. Andrea Jenkins is the author of the poetry …
Continue reading "Andrea Jenkins on The T is Not Silent and intersections of art and politics"
In our 60th episode, Lissa speaks with Queen of Black Horror Tananarive Due on the re-release of her 1995 debut novel The Between (Harper Perennial, 2021). Due is a leading voice in Black speculative fiction, and teaches about Black horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA where she developed a course called “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival …
Continue reading "Tananarive Due, award-winning author and scholar of Black Horror on The Between"
On this episode, we hear from LaTanya McQueen about her debut novel, When the Reckoning Comes (Harper Perennial, 2021). The novel follows Mira, a young woman who travels back to the southern town where she grew up to attend the wedding of a childhood friend -- a wedding being held at a former plantation-turned-event venue. …
Continue reading "LaTanya McQueen on her debut novel When the Reckoning Comes"