The sixth round of the Great Michigan Read, a biennial
statewide literary program of the Michigan Humanities Council, has taken off at
Peter White Public Library. The 2017/18 GMR title is X: A Novel by
Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon. We have 10
books available for checking out (or placing holds), book marks, and Reader’s
Guides in the new book area on the main floor.
X: A Novel is a riveting coming-of-age story that explores Malcolm
X’s early years in Michigan. By age 15, a self-destructive Malcolm moves back
and forth from Michigan to Boston and New York. He works a number of jobs, begins
to deal drugs and run numbers, and at age 21 is arrested for larceny and
B&E. Inside prison, Malcolm is introduced to Islam and steps out on the
journey toward becoming a significant voice in America’s history, and a universally
recognized civil rights leader and human rights activist. Co-author Shabazz is
a daughter of Malcolm X.
Herb Boyd, an award-winning journalist, relates the history
of Detroit through the African-American experience in Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self Determination. Boyd takes
us from the time of Cadillac, through labor in auto plants and the music of
Motown, to today’s efforts to recreate a viable city in twenty-first century
America. In this Michigan Notable Book, Boyd explores the rich culture,
religious life, economics and politics of black Detroit, including the
influences of Malcolm X.
The Dawn of Detroit: A
Chronicle of Freedom in the City of the Straits provides a new look at the
history of Detroit by exposing the slavery and forced labor that existed at its
heart. UM Professor Tiya Miles researched the lives of unfree Native American
and African-American people in colonial Detroit through the wills, letters, and
account books of slaveholders. She establishes the significance of slavery in
Detroit in work such as fur trading, freighting, and farming.
Michael W. Twitty, founder of Afroculinaria, the first blog about African American culinary
history, traces his own family ancestry and the African American experience in
general through the vehicle of Southern food in his memoir, The Cooking Gene. Twitty’s exploration
ranges from Africa to America, from colonial times, slavery and the Civil War, to
black-owned organic farms in Georgia. He shows how several centuries of African
American cooking molded Southern cuisine and mixes in race, politics, and
economics. Food is one avenue throughy which everyone can sit together at the
same table. This book will inspire cooks and genealogists, although I’ll
probably skip the roast possum.
Matt Taibbi’s book I
Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street looks at the killing of
forty-three-year-old Eric Garner by NYC police in July, 2014. When NYPD officers
put Garner in a chokehold, Garner cried out, “I can’t breathe”. His last words became
a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement. Taibbi introduces us to all
sides of Garner and explores the social ills that contributed to his death
including poverty, mass incarceration, racial inequality in law enforcement,
and a flawed justice system.
An appeal for bridging the racial divide is found in Michael
Eric Dyson’s sermon, Tears We Cannot Stop.
Dyson, an ordained minister, opens this work with a call to worship, and ends
with benediction. Within this weekly framework, Dyson discusses the role of
race and privilege within mainstream culture. He acknowledges our need to face
difficult truths, develop empathy, and increase racial literacy. The Great
Michigan Read program and your local library are great places to start this
work.
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