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“Hoodoo, or Voodoo, as pronounced by the whites, is burning with a flame in America, with all the intensity of a suppressed religion. It has its thousands of secret adherents. It adapts itself like Christianity to its locale, reclaiming some of its borrowed characteristics to itself, such as fire worship as signified in the Christian church by the altar and the candles and the belief in the power of water to sanctify as in baptism. Belief in magic is older than writing. So nobody knows how it started.” - an excerpt from MULES AND MEN, © 1935 ⭐️
Looking forward to sharing my favorite Hoodoo Stories gathered by novelist, folklorist, legendary anthropologist and TFBWL muse Zora Neale Hurston on Sunday, October 31 at our next TFBWL session in honor of Hoodoo Heritage Month.
Join us at The Plaza at 300 Ashland in Fort Greene, Brooklyn for a special collaboration with our friends from The Center of Fiction.
Folks are welcome to come dressed as their favorite author or character to compete for prizes, as well as bring good books written by Black women to trade with the collection from noon to 5.
See you then!!
Happy Pub Day to Mecca Jamilah Sullivan!! 🎉💙
I am looking forward to reading and discussing this one!! I first discovered Mecca’s Black Feminist scholarly work via a presentation she did on the legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, and became a fan pretty instantly. 💙🖤
RP: @meccajamilah It’s pub day! The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora is officially in the world! If you love & think about queerness, language, and Black feminist living, this book wants to talk to you.
From Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, and Bessie Head, to Zanele Muholi, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Missy Elliott, black women writers and artists across the African Diaspora have developed nuanced and complex creative forms. Mecca Jamilah Sullivan ventures into the unexplored spaces of black women’s queer creative theorizing to learn its languages and read the textures of its forms. Moving beyond fixed notions, Sullivan points to a space of queer imagination where black women invent new languages, spaces, and genres to speak the many names of difference. Black women’s literary cultures have long theorized the complexities surrounding nation and class, the indeterminacy of gender and race, and the multiple meanings of sexuality. Yet their ideas and work remain obscure in the face of indifference from Western scholarship.
Innovative and timely, The Poetics of Difference illuminates understudied queer contours of black women’s writing.
My September Read Wrap Up!!😻
📚📕📙📘📗📚
5 books a month is my literary sweet spot, and it was a particularly good month cause I actually loved every single one of these. 10/10 for all!!
Good books are life giving!!
♥️👌🏿📚🎉
I’m making an attempt to write some mini reviews this weekend for TFBWL Patreon patrons, so grateful for their support of this social art project.
♥️📕♥️📕
MULES AND MEN by Zora Neale Hurston, 1935 - short story collection
(*I will be reading excerpts from this one for our Halloween session, details soon come*)
BEFORE YOU SUFFOCATE YOUR OWN FOOL SELF by Danielle Evans, 2010 - short story collection
WAKE/THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF WOMEN LED SLAVE REVOLTS by Rebecca Hall, 2021 - graphic novel/history
IN THE DREAM HOUSE by Carmen Maria Machado, 2019 - memoir
UNBOUND/MY STORY OF LIBERATION AND THE BIRTH OF THE ME TOO MOVEMENT by Tarana Burke, 2021 - memoir
Have you read any of these beauties??
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I also added some of these to my 2021 TFBWL Reading Challenge spreadsheet, I’ve read 23 books for the channel so far, and I have actually truly enjoyed almost all of them!!
TFBWL Classics:
“My working day was very simple. I got up at dawn, prayed, went down to bathe in the River Ormond, had a bite to eat, then spent my time on my explorations and healing. At that time cholera and smallpox struck the plantations regularly and laid to rest a good many slaves. I discovered how to treat these illnesses. I also discovered how to treat yaws and to heal those ones the slaves got day after day. I managed to mend open festering wounds to put pieces of bone back together again and tie up limbs. All that of course with the help of my invisible spirits who hardly ever left me. I had given up the illusion of making men invincible and immortal. I accepted the limits of the species.”
- an excerpt from I, TITUBA, BLACK WITCH OF SALEM written by Maryse Condé, published by One World Books in English in 1992, originally published as MOI, TITUBA, SORCIÈRE…..NOIRE DE SALEM in 1986. Featuring a forward written by Angela Davis
From the warm shores of 17th century Barbados to the harsh realities of the slave trade, and the cold customs of puritanical England. Tituba, the only Black victim of the Salem witch trials, recalls a life of extraordinary experiences and mystical powers.
“Tituba and I lived for a year on the closest of terms. During our endless conversations she told me things she had confided to nobody else.”
TFBWL recommends this book for readers over the age of 16 who have an interest or love for witchcraft, sacred healing, herbalism, permaculture, spirit work, toxic romances and historical fiction.
TFBWL BOOKMAIL ♥️🖤💛
Excited to read the newest release from an absolute fave!! Professor, Scholar, Digital Alchemist of @oeb.legacy and TFBWL Muse Dr. Moya Bailey!!
Thank you for sending me this culturally significant Black Feminist literary beauty!! Woooohooo!!
🎉 🖤♥️ 🥰♥️🖤
It’s inner sleeve reads -
“When Moya Bailey coined the term “misogynoir”, she defined it as the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women, particularly in visual culture and digital spaces. She had no idea that the term would go viral, touching a cultural nerve and quickly entering the lexicon. In MISOGYNOIR TRANSFORMED, Bailey delves into her groundbreaking concept, highlighting Black women’s digital resistance to anti-Black misogyny on YouTube Twitter or Tumblr and other platforms.
At a time when Black women are depicted as more ugly, deficient, hypersexual, and unhealthy then their non-Black counterparts, Bailey explores how Black women have used social media platforms to confront misogynoir in a number of courageous-and most importantly, effective-ways. Focusing on queer and trans Black women, she shows us the importance of carving out digital spaces, where communities are built around queer Black webshows and hashtags like #GirlsLikeUs.
Bailey shows how black women actively reimagine the world by engaging in powerful forms of digital resistance at a time when anti-black misogyny is thriving on social media. A groundbreaking work, misogyny while transformed highlights black women’s remarkable efforts to disrupt main stream narrative, subvert negative stereotypes, and reclaim their lives.”
Published by NYU Press, 2021.
Filled with an abundance of cultural references, nuances, sources and citations around Black women’s survival strategies and movements of transformation and liberation.
This book feels like a must read for those interested in studying Black Feminism in both Theory and Praxis as well as Cultural Workers of the digital space.
I see a lot of highlighting and note taking from this one, in my immediate future. Looking forward to it. 🤓🖤
TFBWL Fall Frolick TikTok Reel
📚🌿🍑🌽☀️♥️☺️
Thank you so much to all the lovely folks that came to The Free Black Women’s Library Fall Frolic last month.
We had a sweet day of trading good books by Black women, foraging and frolicking in the garden and connecting over the beauty and brilliance of Black women’s literature.
Thank you so much to @462halsey for hosting us!!
The weather was absolutely perfect and it was so wonderful and nourishing to gather with folks.
In addition to all of the garden herbs, vegetables and flowers available for library visitors, we had bushels of corn and peaches on deck. The initial plan was to grill and serve them but giving them away became a much better idea.
🌽 🍑 🌽🍑
This month we are celebrating Hoodoo Heritage Month with The Center of Fiction at The Plaza @ 300 Ashland Place with a costume contest (literary prizes on deck!!) and a reading of some Hoodoo Stories written by Zora Neale Hurston.
Join me Sunday October 31, from noon to 5!! See you then!!
🎃🕷💀🎉☺️
Song featured
SZA - GOOD DAYS ♥️
After All Is Said and Done
by June Jordan
“Maybe you thought I would forget
about the sunrise
how the moon stayed in the morning
time a lower lip
your partly open partly spoken mouth
Maybe you thought I would exaggerate
the fire of the stars
the fire of the wet wood burning by
the waterside
the fire of the fuck the sudden move
you made me make
to meet you
(fire)
BABY
I do not exaggerate and
if
I could
I would.”
Poem feature in a new collection of June Jordan poems entitled THE ESSENTIAL JUNE JORDAN
edited by Jan Heller Levi and Christop Keller
Published by Copper Canyon Press, 2021
The Free Black Women’s Library is closing out Black August with two very special events this month!!
One virtual and one in person outdoor event!!
This month’s book selection for TFBWL Reading Club is the best selling memoir, SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER written by Ashley C. Ford!! We are so excited to share that Miss Ford will be in attendance to talk to us a bit about this searing powerful story.
I am halfway through this book, and in awe of the depth of her truth telling and vulnerability!! Whew!! IN AWE!!
Register to attend via eventbrite link in comments!! All are welcome!!
This month’s biblio installation/pop up session is taking place at one of our favorite community gardens in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, 462 Halsey!! 🍃
Come check out the vast book collection, spend a sweet time in the garden, enjoy and connect with nature, and trade good books of any genre written by Black women with the library and others. All are welcome, no registration necessary!!
Book lovers of every age, race and gender are welcome to attend both events, but masks are required for our in person event whether you are vaccinated or not. Thank you!!
♥️📚🖤📚💚
The Free Black Women’s Library is closing out Black August with two very special events this month!!
One virtual and one in person outdoor event!!
This month’s book selection for TFBWL Reading Club is the best selling memoir, SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER written by Ashley C. Ford!! We are so excited to share that Miss Ford will be in attendance to talk to us a bit about this searing powerful story.
I am halfway through this book, and in awe of the depth of her truth telling and vulnerability!! Whew!! IN AWE!!
Register to attend via eventbrite link in comments!! All are welcome!!
This month’s biblio installation/pop up session is taking place at one of our favorite community gardens in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, 462 Halsey!! 🍃
Come check out the vast book collection, spend a sweet time in the garden, enjoy and connect with nature, and trade good books of any genre written by Black women with the library and others. All are welcome, no registration necessary!!
Book lovers of every age, race and gender are welcome to attend both events, but masks are required for our in person event whether you are vaccinated or not. Thank you!!
♥️📚🖤📚💚