Getting to Know Malcolm and Manning

Interview with Manning Marable

It's  always exciting to learn more about a topic you thought you knew well, as I am doing now with Malcolm X. I can't wait to discuss Manning Marable's perspective on Malcolm with all of you at our next meeting.

A couple of resources to help you out, or for those who want additional background on the book, or on Malcolm or on Dr. Marable's work.

Dr Marable researched and worked on the book through the Malcolm X Project at Columbia University in New York. The website is a treasure trove of primary sources, video interviews, photos, and government documents. Most of the sources cited in Marable's book are here.

For a completely different approach to Malcolm's life and work, try Malcolm X: A Research Site, edited by Abdul Alkalimat. Alkalimat is highly critical of Marable, (see his review) and writes from a decided Black Liberation perspective, but  the site does a wonderful job of pulling together essays and documents from a wide variety of historians,and political and religious figures across the spectrum, as well as recordings of Malcolm's speeches. You can even join in on the ongoing debate over the legitimacy of Marable's book.

I've pulled together a list of books either  in the EPL collection or else readily obtainable through local libraries, as well as some additional websites. Hope this is helpful, and I'll see all of you on Tuesday December 11th at 7 pm for our discussion!

Call or stop by the Library's 2nd floor desk if you still need a copy: 847-448-8620.

Civil Rights Era Fiction

Greetings AAL fans! Tomorrow night we will be talking about Betsey Brown, Ntozake's Shange's evocative portrayal of a middle class family in St Louis during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement.  If you'd like to know more about the author, check out this great article: 10 Things to Know About Ntozake Shange.


Betsey Brown is somewhat different from Shange's other work; it has a  simpler more straightforward style and vocabulary (it's often taught as a young adult novel) and a more traditional narrative than say her famous choreopoem For Colored Girls. For a comprehensive overview, take a look at the  Betsey Brown reading guide.

The civil rights movement has produced its share of famous novels, but from To Kill a Mockingbird all the way through The Help, many of the best known have been by white authors and written from a white perspective. If you're looking for the African American fiction set in this time period, try our list of civil rights fiction for black folks.

And don't forget to pick up your copy of Malcom X: A Reinvention! copies are already on hold; call the Reader's Services desk at 847-448-8620 to snag yours.

The War on Drugs...a War on African Americans

It's almost time...our next meeting is this coming Tuesday October 9th at 7:00 p.m. , and it promises to be a hot one! As we read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, it's helpful to look at U.S. drug policy, which results in so many arrests of young African Americans. National Public Radio aired this program in January, in which  All Things Considered host Guy Raz speaks with director Eugene Jarecki about  his film The House I Live In. Michelle Alexander can be heard in the interview.

You can also hear Ms. Alexander given an impassioned address to Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, in which she outlines the major themes of her book.

One of the sources Alexander quotes is Douglas Blackmon's Slavery By Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Although most of us know about "chain gangs" and the sharecropping system, Blackmon also highlights  a prison system designed to net as many black men as possible to provide free labor for companies and local governments across the South. As in Alexander's work, it's the intentionality that shocks, and provides the most disturbing and controversial moments in the book.

I look forward to exploring and debating Alexander and Blackmon's arguments with all of you this Tuesday!

Finding Humor in Racism: Discussing Erasure

Welcome back to AAL! Next Tuesday September 11th we'll be discussing Erasure, Percival Everett's wryly humorous take on racism in the book business. But is racism ever  funny? Or should it be?

Generations of writers and comics have found inspiration in the absurdity of human nature, and  few things are more absurd than racism. Making fun of racism has been a staple of African American theater, literature and folklore since slavery days, as attested in several recent histories of the genre.

Laughing at racism from a black perspective has served as a defense mechanism, a safety valve, and corrective to demeaning portrayals of African Americans in the larger culture. Godfrey Cambridge, Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, David Alan Grier and Chris Rock: all use humor to deflate stereotypes about African Americans, while Grier and Rock also challenge fellow African Americans not to fall into the same patterns of sloppy stereotypical thought and behavior.

One of the most innovative current practitioners of comedic racism bashing is stand-up comedian W. Kamau Bell, whose routine, The W. Kamau Bell Curve Show: Ending Racism In About An Hour, takes on closet racism in a fresh,  TED talk style.

Click the above video, "2 Questions That You Never Ask Black People about Their Hair" for a taste. (WARNING: the language gets a bit raw.)

Poking fun at racism can defuse tension and open dialogue around an uncomfortable topic, according to anti-racism educator Damali Ayo. In her book How to Rent a Negro , Ayo claims that "all blacks have been "rented" at some time, placed in the role of token at work or in a social setting, or drafted to represent the entire race with an opinion on a current race-related topic". Her "renter's guide" satirizes this phenomenon, allowing "renters" to see themselves, laugh at themselves, and perhaps experience a little consciousness raising.

I hope our discussion of Erasure will be fun, funny and (thought) provocative. To get a copy, please call us at 847-448-8620, (mention that you plan to attend AAL!)

A Summer's Worth of Black Literature

   The African American Literature discussion group will be taking a break this summer, with our next meeting scheduled for Tuesday September 11th. We'll be discussing Percival Everett's Erasure, a fascinating novel about a black intellectual confronting what that terms mean to his colleagues, his readers and his family. Easily one of the best books I've read this year!

 In the meantime, there are plenty of fascinating African American titles you might want to check out for your summer reading. A good place to start is EPL's list of notable recent African American fiction and nonfiction. If you're interested in biographies and memoirs, we have a list for that as well. But if you're in true "beach read" mode, perhaps this list of African American mysteries might be more to your taste!

Wherever your literary travels take you, I wish you a healthy and happy summer, and I look forward to seeing everyone in September for Erasure!

Lesley

Religion, Race and Family in American Politics

 Just a week left until our discussion of Keli Goff's The GQ Candidate! Ms Goff is a lively, articulate presence on CNN,  MSNBC, and the Huffington Post.  Much of her commentary focuses on the destructive role she sees religion playing in political discourse. Although The GQ Candidate deals primarily with race, and with how politics affects families and friends, religion is also a key issue. The central character, Luke Cooper, is African American but was adopted and raised by a Jewish couple and now considers himself an agnostic. Is it possible to be a successful African American politician without being a Christian?

In Keli's  video above, she mostly talks about the pressures political campaigns put on the families and friends of candidates. But check out this interview  on Washington Watch where she explores the religious issue more fully.

Join us next Tuesday July 10th at 7:00 pm for the discussion! We still have a couple of copies left at the 2nd floor desk, so stop by or call 847-448-8620.

Trivia question: who did Goff name the lead character and his wife in The GQ Candidate  after? Email lawilliams@cityofevanston.org with the correct answer for a chance at a free pair of Ravinia tickets! Hint: politics is such a soap opera, isn't it?

African American Family Histories

On July 11th, EPL is proud to welcome Rachel Swarns, author of American Tapestry: The Story of the Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama.  Tracing the First Lady's ancestry from the Revolutionary War to the White House, this inspiring history unearths the hidden story of her family tree while telling the collective tale of our changing nation.The book is already a publishing sensation, with a front page review in last week's New York Times Book Review, and a thoughtful interview from Chicago's own Dawn Turner Trice .

Of course, Michelle's is not the only black family history to make the bestseller list. Ever since Roots, the field of African American family memoirs has been a rich one. Celebrities like Lena Horne and Gail Lumet Buckley in  The Hornes, an American Family, Condoleeza Rice in Extraordinary Ordinary People and Michele Norris in The Grace of Silence have all explored their family histories, often with startling results. As in the Swarn book, uncomfortable truths about racial mixing play a large role. Family memoirs from non-celebrities, like Bertice Berry's  The Ties That Bind , Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family, or Afi Scrubb's Claiming Kin Confronting the History of An African-American Family have also explored this fraught history of slavery, consensual and non-consensual relationships between white men and black women, and the contradictory definitions of "race" which resulted.

Now through July 11th, EPL is featuring a display of these and other African American family memoirs. Stopby, and also grab a copy of our July 10th discussion book The GQ Candidate!