For us here at NLA, it was paramount to get June’s newsletter right. We are living in a civil rights moment in history; we simply couldn’t do a business-as-usual publishing article. We embraced and then discarded many a topic for this space. None seemed right (and many would be powerful articles, but my voice is not what needs to be heard in this moment in time).
Then we realized we could release this newsletter on June 19, 2020: Juneteenth. One way to honor #BlackLivesMatter is to amplify black voices in literature on this date. So that is what we are doing.
What is Juneteenth? It is a holiday observed each year on June 19 to mark the official end of slavery in the U.S. For the history of this holiday, let me pass the mic to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who is an Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.
To honor Juneteenth, we encourage our newsletter readers to buy a book, fiction or nonfiction, by a Black author today. Actually, buy two, or three, four, or more. At a loss for ideas? This is by no means an exhaustive list; however, we are positive that you will find a gem.
NONFICTION
- So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
- How to Be an Anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That A Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
NLA BOOKS
- A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown (YA)
- Slay By Brittney Morris (YA)
- No Place Safe: A Family Memoir by Kim Reid
LITERARY
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
- Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures, edited by Natasha Marin
HISTORICAL
- The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
- Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
COMMERCIAL
- Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
- Indigo by Beverly Jenkins
- My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
- The Fifth Season by N.K Jemison
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- Parable of Sower by Octavia E. Butler
- Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
- Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
- Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
- Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
YOUNG ADULT
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
- American Street by Ibi Zoboi
- I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segel
- Truly Madly Royally by Debbie Rigaud
- More must-have YA reads
LINKS & LISTS
- Essence.com
- The Oprah Magazine
- The Portalist – Black SF&F Authors You Need to Read
- BookRiot – 45 Upcoming Books by Black Authors You Can Pre-Order Now
Creative Common Photo Credit: XoMEoX