#African-American literature

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The cover of Opportunity, a publication of the National Urban League, January 1925. Cover design by Winold Reiss.

Photo: NYPL

[lionofchaeronea]

And all things were transfigured in the day But me, whom radiant beauty could not move; For you, more wonderful, were far away, And I was blind with hunger for your love. -Claude McKay, "Summer Morn in New Hampshire"

[t0rschlusspan1k]

I am sorry. I am grateful. I just want us to be friends now, forever. Take this bowl of blackberries from the garden. The sun has made them warm. I picked them just for you. I promise I will try to stay on my side of the couch.

— Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (2017)

[sporclechezchunklets]

Rest in Peace, and in Power.

Allowables, Nikki Giovanni

[healthyhabitjournal]

Dive into the heart of African-American literature with our latest article on the unforgettable Zora Neale Hurston. Uncover the legacy that reshaped the literary world and continues to inspire today. From gripping narratives to empowering themes, see why Hurston's works are more than just stories—they're a movement. Your journey into profound literary significance starts here! #AfricanAmericanLiterature #ZoraNealeHurston

[mimi-0007]

Let's go!!!

[sbrown82]

“I remember an incident from my own childhood, when a very close friend of mine and I, we were walking down the street. We were discussing whether God existed. And she said he did not. And I said he did. But then she said she had proof. She said, ‘I had been praying for two years for blue eyes, and he never gave me any.’ So, I just remember turning around and looking at her. She was very, very Black. And she was very, very, very, very beautiful. How painful. Can you imagine that kind of pain? About that, about color? So, I wanted to say you know, this kind of racism hurts. This is not lynchings, and murders, and drownings. This is interior pain. So deep. For an 11 year-old girl to believe that if she only had some characteristic of the white world, she would be okay. [Black girls] surrendered completely to the master narrative. I mean the whole notion of what is ugliness, what is worthlessness. She got it from her family, she got it from school, she got it from the movies — she got it everywhere; it’s white male life. The master narrative is whatever ideological script that is being imposed by the people in authority on everybody else. The master fiction, history, it has a certain point of view. So, when these little girls see that the most prized gift that they can get at Christmastime is this little white doll, that’s the master narrative speaking: “This is beautiful. This is lovely, and you’re not it.”

Toni Morrison on what inspired her to write her first novel, The Bluest Eye.

[kkurates]

Octavia E. Butler’s Notes to Self.

[thewritersspotblog]

More Pioneering African-American Women in Journalism

Long before figures like Gwen Ifill, Robin Roberts, Joy-Ann Reid, and April Ryan were reporting the news of the day in papers and on television screens across the nation, a number of black women pioneered the path for them in print, on the radio, and even writing covering beats like the White House and the war front. The rise of newspapers produced by and for the African-American community…

[chaoticsoft]

Toni Morrison, 1974.

Photographer: Waring Abbott

[lionofchaeronea]

Current reading is Harlem Shadows, the landmark 1922 poetry collection by the Jamaican-American author Claude McKay (1890-1948). To breathe new life into traditional forms like the sonnet, at a time when Modernism and free verse were overwhelmingly dominant, is impressive. To write of intense emotions--alienation, grief, rage--in a beautiful way is no less impressive. To do both at once is astonishing, and that is what McKay did. His work is an undying cri de coeur against racial injustice in both his native and his adopted countries, and it stands as one of the crowning achievements of the Harlem Renaissance.

[haveyoureadthispoll]

[gennsoup]

Touching you I catch midnight as moon fires set in my throat I love you flesh into blossom I made you and take you made into me.

Audre Lorde, Recreation

[spoiledbratblog]

[karencyars14]

[mimi-0007]