New acquisitions 📚💜🙌🏾⭐️
Thank you Lorraine Eakin for gifting these awesome classics to The Free Black Women’s Library book collection, including one of my faves by Alice Walker POSSESSING THE SECRET OF JOY.
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#books #booklover #freeblackwomenslibrary #blackwomanbibliophile #mobilelibrary #blackbooks #blackbooksmatterMore you might like
@kiyannaloves got two of my faves last Sunday at The Free Black Women’s Library!! Major score, yay!!😍😍
#books #bookstagram #bookswap #goodreads #blackbooks #BlackBookwormsMatter #blackwomanbibliophile #freeblackwomenslibrary 📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚📚
#Repost @kiyannaloves (@get_repost)
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So excited about these two books I got at @thefreeblackwomenslibrary session today at the Studio Museum in Harlem! There were so many great books and awesome people 📖✨
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Amazing busy weekend. Sunday was a gorgeous day!!
Thank you so much to Joseph Cuillier and Shani Peters of the Black School for inviting me to be a part of their special project Black Love Fest. I felt so much love and support from folks, it was almost surreal. Gave some books away and sold some cards and buttons too!!
Some pics 😍😍😍😍
Hope to see you at the next meet up!!
New acquisitions 🖤⚡️📚
Thank you so much to Dr. Sharon Johnson for gifting two copies of your book SEEING IN THE DARK/Wisdom Works by Black Women in Depth Psychology to The Free Black Women’s Library book collection. Always happy to receive books that focus on our mental health and well being 🖤🖤
Thanks so much to Jan Calloway for sending me two dreamy gorgeous books from The Free Black Women’s Library Amazon wish list 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤 swooning over these award winning best selling power house books, one that captures the elements and significance of an era in Black history and one that tells the story of an iconic Black life.
THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the great untold story of the decades long migration of Black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, six million people moved from one part of the country to another this changing the face of America. Dr. Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand individuals and gained access to new data and official records to write this vividly dramatic account on how their journeys unfolded altering cities, the country and themselves.
LOOKING FOR LORRAINE by brilliant professor and historian Dr. Imani Perry. This incredible recently published biography is the first one written in decades, and has received rave review and multiple accolades, all well deserved as it shows the multi dimensional and miraculous complexity of the great Hansberry’s life. It tells her story of growing up in Chicago in a middle class Black family and her journey towards becoming a Black nationalist, internationalist, world traveler, cultural worker, feminist, civil rights advocate, award winning playwright who was befriended and beloved by many of the most important Black figures of her time period. This awesome book addresses and explains her influence and her importance, a must read for anyone looking to understand Lorraine and be inspired by her work. We find ourselves by studying our history and reading the stories of our ancestors so I’m deeply excited to add these necessary important reads to our non fiction stacks!! 🖤📚 If you would like to send us one of our desired titles, please check out our Amazon wish list.
Wow!! Thank you so much to @booksthroughmyeyes for sending me this gorgeous collection of books for The Free Black Women’s Library!!! Such a kind and thoughtful gesture. I truly felt the love pouring out of this package. You are a true book angel, and I appreciate you so much!!!💗💗💗💗 if you would like to support the library by sending us books by Black women please send to -
TFBWL
1072 Bedford Avenue
Box 39
Brooklyn, NY 11216
Good morning!!
Just want to say thank you to everyone who supports and appreciates this project and page!! Thank you for your likes, comments, DMs and all the good and loving energy you send my way. Thank you so much for all the awesome books by Black women you send me, drop off and trade in. Thank you so much to the folks who come to the library each month and engage with the material and many activities being offered. Thank you to those who have started TFBWL branches in your area. Thank you especially to the patrons who give funds towards the growth and sustainability of this project every month through Patreon, I would not be able to keep this going without your financial contributions!! Recently I attempted to get funding from an organization that claims to give money to public practice social engagement community building type projects, multiple people told me to apply for the big money they were offering not just cause they know I needed it, but also cause they felt TFBWL was a perfect fit, but guess what!! they said this work does not have enough social impact and that I need to be doing more to get their dollars. 🤔
Their response gave me pause, because I thought of all of you and the hundreds of people who come to the library every month, the Black girl bookworms who spend the entire day at the library, the educators who create curriculum and reading lists based on the library’s collection, the Black women who feel excited and affirmed when they see over a thousand books written by people who look like them about things they care about, the writers who feel inspired and open, the elders who lift me up and praise my efforts, the folks who come in looking for a very specific book and always always find it, all of those who tell me they feel liberated, creative and joyful just being in the space. This all feels good and impactful to me, so I had to let go of their opinion that I’m not doing enough and just continue on, focus on what feels good and just be thankful. I am filled with gratitude. 🖤
Thank you so much to Beth Boose who sent me a gorgeous pair of books from The Free Black Women’s Library Amazon wish list!!!
Much swooning over these two fresh beauties recently received, BLACK FEMINISM REIMAGINED by Jennifer C. Nash and one of my favorite reads of the year THICK AND OTHER ESSAYS by Tressie McMillan Cottom our featured author for June!!!!!!
Thank you thank you thank you This is serendipity and connection, we are going to dive into the brilliance of Thick with Dr. Cottom on June 30th at MOCADA Museum 🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿.
Save the date!!
I sighed when both of these books showed up!! So so good ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
please feel free to continue sending us Black women’s books that serve us deep nerdy critical text that examines the beauty, power and complications of race and gender. Classic and New ☺️
The address is : TFBWL, 1072 Bedford Avenue, box 39 Brooklyn NY 11216 👌🏿⭐️👏🏿
We are back at one of our Bedstuy faves for this month’s pop up!! Join us for some freshly brewed tea and liberating literature based conversation on Sunday, December 22nd from noon to 4 Brooklyn Tea
Come check out and enjoy The Free Black Women’s Library vast gorgeous collection of books written by Black women
Bring a good book written by a Black woman to donate or trade.
Purchase a TFBWL T-shirt, button, sticker or poster.
This is our last installation in what has been a long, busy challenging and amazing year.
So grateful for the growth, support and appreciation!!
Sending so much LOVE to all our patrons on Patreon without you this project could not be, thank you so sooooooo much!!
4 years ago today, I took 100 books by Black women and set them up on a brownstone stoop in Brooklyn. I danced in honor of the sacred beauty, brilliance and creativity that Black women bring and let my community know I was starting a small social art project known as The Free Black Women’s Library. I was nervous AF, I had been sitting on the idea for months unsure if I had the time, capability, and bandwidth to make it happen.
I am a single mother, freelance artist with limited funds, also a loner, extremely shy, introverted, prone to bouts of severe depression, but I was sick of seeing Black womanhood attached to struggle, pain, trauma, victimhood, criminality, violence, poverty, ugliness, incompetence, so much negativity attached to our existence.
I knew different, I felt different and wanted to show proof to myself and my community, so I jumped in and said phuck it, what’s the worse that will happen? People will think, I’m crazy or weird, - that ain’t nothing new.
Black women’s words have saved my life, healed me, nurtured me and provided me with the comfort that I’ve needed in every rough moment of my life and I wanted to share that fact/testimony. I did my first official book swap that day and the rest as they say is history.
Here I am now with a collection of 1200 with branches forming across the country!! 🙌🏿💓⭐️☺️
I had no idea what would happen next, the journey has been both good, tiring, educational, inspiring and complicated. 😂
Thanks to those who show support and love. Extra special love and shout out to all the Patreon subscribers and those that send me books!! You are my angels!!! ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
The financial support you give is needed and deeply appreciated!! This project gets zero funding outside of you!!! I love you for helping me keep this thing going!!
Happy Birthday to us!! 💓💓
Thank you so much to Rae Ann Van Beers from Alberta, Canada for sending these two awesome books from The Free Black Women’s Library wish list. So excited to add these two literary gems to the ever growing collection. Great additions to the African writers section in both Fiction and Lifestyle/Self-Help.
In her debut book NERVOUS CONDITIONS by Tsitsi Dangarembga, from Zimbabwe offers up a quintessential moving coming of age page turner that became a classic upon its release. This novel’s offers the readers glimpse into the lives and minds young of African women in a way that feels rare and significant.
Vibrant and beautiful like it’s writer Chidera Eggerue WHAT A TIME TO BE ALONE is peppered with Igbo proverbs from Chidera’s mother and full of her own original artwork. It’s goal to serve as a guide and resource toward claiming your worth, healing from trauma, empowering yourself, developing clear boundaries and growing healthy relationships. It is both visually stunning to flip through, as well as being soulfully sweet.
I am thrilled to add these books to the stacks and look forward to discussing them with folks. Blessings and Black Feminist Love to Rae Anne for sending. This gift is deeply appreciated. 🧡