By Williamena Kwapo | OBSERVER Employees Author
Tales of romance, loss, incarceration, and household took middle stage Sept. 13 at Sacramento’s BlkLit E-book Pageant, the place authors and group members gathered to honor the lengthy custom of Black storytelling.
The inaugural one-day competition — hosted by St. HOPE and held at Underground Books and The Guild Theater — celebrated Black writers previous and current. The competition highlighted the position that Black tales and books play in guiding, empowering, and preserving tradition.
“We’re the descendants of Toni Morrison and of James Baldwin. These are our literary ancestors,” stated Julian Newman, a local Sacramentan and creator of “Stunning Collectively.” “The truth that we’re right here on this area is a part of the resistance.”
All through the day, audiences additionally heard from authors akin to Sheryl Lister, whose novels highlight Black love and romance; actor and creator Victoria Rowell; and Shaka Senghor, whose bestselling works on incarceration and redemption have drawn nationwide consideration, together with a number of interviews with Oprah Winfrey.
Their conversations touched on each triumphs and obstacles that Black authors face in publishing, such because the battle to take care of genuine voices, pushback towards editorial bias, and the methods literature can function a software for resistance. Additionally they burdened that tales of pleasure and therapeutic are simply as very important as tales of ache.
“You possibly can solely put ink on paper at that second during which you’re keen to be fully sincere,” Senghor stated whereas discussing his new e-book “Tips on how to Be Free.” “And which means you’re going to must be sincere concerning the ache, you’re going to must be sincere concerning the accountability, however you additionally must be sincere concerning the pleasure and the success.”
Maybe probably the most historic second of the competition was the announcement of the National Association of Black Bookstores (NAB2), a brand new member-based nonprofit devoted to selling literacy, amplifying Black voices, and preserving Black tradition.
NAB2 was based by Kevin Johnson, former Sacramento mayor and proprietor of Underground Books. Johnson’s inspiration for group was his late mom, Georgia “Mom Rose” Peat West, who based Underground Books in 2003 and handed away final December. Her bookstore stood tall even throughout a time frame when Black-owned bookstores plummeted.
Black-owned bookstores as soon as flourished within the U.S., with greater than 200 throughout the nation within the mid-Nineties. By 2014, solely 54 remained, in keeping with analysis from Troy Johnson, founding father of the African American Literature Book Club. However lately, the tide has shifted, partially because of the 2020 racial reckoning. As of 2023, there have been about 149 Black-owned bookstores nationwide.
However the resurgence of Black bookstores is about greater than retaining storefronts open; it’s about the way forward for studying itself.
Nationwide research present that studying charges are declining general, with fewer adults and kids reporting they learn books recurrently.
For African American college students, literacy gaps stay. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has persistently reported decrease studying scores for Black college students in comparison with their white friends. Advocates on the competition stated amplifying Black authors, bookstores, and providing tales that replicate college students’ lives and spark a love of studying, is one method to push again towards these traits.
“I believe a part of the rationale we see challenges with literacy is as a result of the tales themselves aren’t related to the people who find themselves studying them,” stated Sacramento State President Dr. Luke Wooden, who participated in a barbershop speak with UC Davis Chancellor Dr. Gary Could and Johnson. “What Black bookstores do is put that on the middle of the group, and it turns into a bigger group hub round training, literacy, and self-improvement for Black individuals.”
Native schools within the Sacramento area, together with UC Davis and Sacramento State, dedicated $100,000 every to assist NAB2’s efforts hoping to create partnerships with the organizations for college kids within the literary subject.
“I believe individuals prefer to learn and want to be taught to learn if the tales and points they’re studying about are about them, their points, their households, their considerations,” Could stated. “If you wish to enhance literacy, you write about and have individuals examine issues which might be essential to them.”
For attendees, that’s precisely what the BlkLit E-book Pageant provided: an area the place their tales mattered. The place books weren’t simply artifacts, however residing, respiratory reflections of group and the place the subsequent technology might see themselves as each readers and authors.
Johnson stated this 12 months’s competition was a reimagining of the previous Black E-book Pageant which was created and arranged by late Sac State professor Dr. David Covin. The previous had additionally been held within the Oak Park neighborhood for a number of years, however stalled after the pandemic.
