Looking Forward to 2018!

We are reading They Can’t Kill Us All for discussion on Jan. 6, 2018.

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates is our book to read for Black History Month! It’s a bestseller and getting a lot of praise.

Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward, is the winner of the National Book Award for fiction. It’s 304 pages long. We should read this!

Toni Morrison’s book, The Origin of Others is very short. Combining it with one of her novels seems like a good idea.

Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric has been chosen for the Big Read of 2018. It ‘s a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry. Because it’s short (and it’s a poetry book) I was thinking we’d read it with another book of verse: Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.

The Floating World is a novel about Hurricane Katrina and Jane Crow is a biography of Pauli Murray. It may be too

long (512 pages!)

The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard sounds like a fun adventure.

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Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby, 2003

Nine of us met on Saturday March 16 th to discuss Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby, published in 2003. Although born 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker was predominantly reared in Littleton, North Carolina. Her Civil Rights and Human Rights career spanned over five decades, some of her work took place in New York and some took place in the South. Some of the groups she worked with are YNC L Young Negroes’ Cooperative League WEP Worker s’ Education Project NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People SCLC Southern Christian Leadership Conference M FDP Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party SCEF Southern Christian Education Fund SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee She established her place in these movements as a behind the scenes organizer and never sought leadership positions. Her philosophy abou...

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Thirteen of us met on Saturday, Nov. 16 th to discuss Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby (2021.) The main characters are Ike and Buddy Lee. One Black and one white, fathers of sons who were married to each other. Both men hated that their sons were gay and pretty much wanted nothing to do with anyone from a different race. Yet, when their sons are murdered, the two men come together to find out who killed their sons and to seek vengeance. Shelara started us out, saying, “The biggest takeaway from the book for me was how cinematic it was: The way he weaves the story and layers the story and like illustrates the pictures and the way he writes the dialogue,. To me I read it like a movie. I imagine the characters; I know the actors I want to play the characters. I envision Bing Rhames as Ike and of course Sam Eliot as Buddy Lee. Barbara M. added, “I enjoyed the characters. I’m a mystery junkie. The way they introduced the characters was very challenging for me.” Kay said, “...

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas 2023

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Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series

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