The Free Black Women's Library

[The Free Black Women's Library]

The Free BlackWomen's Library, organized by Olaronke Akinmowo

“Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of … Olaronke Akinmowo needs your support for The Free Bl

gofundme.com

Hello and Happy December!! I am nervous and excited to share that yesterday I launched the first crowdfunding campaign for The Free Black Women’s Library.

Thank you so much to those who have donated so far.

I have poured my everything into this project for the past 5 years. The work has felt both necessary and exhausting. It has been on shaky ground the entire time, surviving through the support of my small Patreon family and a tiny team of volunteers. I think it’s time to level up!!!

My dream wish goal, is that it moves into 2021 on a solid sustainable foundation, and with your help I know I can make it happen!!

This dream has three parts!!

1. A storefront or loft space that can house the collection of books (over three thousand and rising) and serve as a reading room, literary hub and community resource.

A space that can be used to read, write, learn, rest and connect with others. It will inclusive and accessible for all body types.

2. A van or small bus that I can convert into an official bookmobile, which can be used to transport the books from place to place, so I no longer have to rely on car services to get the books around. This has been one of the most challenging aspects of this project.

3. A librarian or highly organized person who has a deep love for books and community. This project requires ALOT of labor and I would like to hire someone to manage all of the day to day tasks. I aim to pay this person a living wage with the funds raised via this campaign.

I am asking everyone that follows me on here and enjoys my content to collaborate with me in making these three special dreams come true.

Imagine a space that is comfortable and beautiful, a space that book lovers of every age, race and gender can enjoy. A space where people can come to, to be alone or with others, build community and be inspired by the brilliance and imagination of Black women writers.

We need and deserve this space!!

With your help we can definitely make it happen!! ♥️📚🖤

Please give what you can and feel free to share this post far and wide!! THANK YOU!! ♥️📚🖤♥️📚🖤

[The Free Black Women's Library]

Thrilled to take part in lifting up the work of iconic artist Betye Saar, whose sketches and artwork are currently on display at The Morgan Library & Museum in a very special show entitled - CALL & RESPONSE open until January 12, 2021🖤 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤 😍

I made a little slideshow featuring the books chosen with their genres and themes explored. I am very proud of this little slide show I made, 😏🤔

I am not a digital grrl at all - only thing I couldn’t figure out is how to add music to it 🤔 but I also don’t think sound is always necessary 🤔

We are a Library after all 😂

Also serendipity that I came up with the name for the playlist, googled it and it turns out Saar has a piece with that name 👀

I wrote a longer detailed piece about each book and why I chose them for my Patreon patrons. ⭐️😏

[The Free Black Women's Library]

TFBWL BOOKMAIL🖤⭐️☺️

Thank you dear book angel Grace Pickering for sending me two awesome soft covers written by Black women.

These two selections are two of my favorite reads and I’m super grateful to add them to our collection.

WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY, an incredible collection of short stories written by award winning British Nigerian writer Lesley Nneka Arimah and the breathtaking novel WHAT WE LOSE by the Zinzi Clemmons.

I deeply enjoyed both of these books!!!🤩🤩

Thank you so much for sending🖤🌹

[The Free Black Women's Library]

Shout out to my IG reading buddies

@crystalyogi22

@kiyannaloves

@kuetcwge

@sarahatlee

@womanistbibliophile and everyone else taking part in The Free Black Women’s Library Reading Challenge this year. ♥️🌹📚♥️🌹📚♥️

2020 has had a lot going on, so it’s been a slow reading year for me.

Here is a stack of books I’ve read for the challenge this year so far.

Swipe to the last slide for TFBWL reading challenge details if you would like to take part.

I have enjoyed all of the books I have read so far, but I placed a star next to my favorites!!

THE YELLOW HOUSE by Sarah M. Broom - a debut ⭐️

MY LIFE AS AN ICE CREAM SANDWICH by Ibi Zoboi - a book for middle schoolers

SISTERS OF THE YAM/BLACK WOMEN AND SELF RECOVERY by bell hooks - a vintage Black Feminist text, published before 2000 ⭐️

GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER by Bernardino Evaristo - a classic or award winning novel ⭐️

HOMEGOING by Yaa Gyasi - a book by an African author

THE WAR BEFORE by Safiya Bukhari - a book by a political activist or organizer ⭐️

SASSAFRAS, CYPRESS & INDIGO by Ntozake Shange - a book that centers relationships between women ⭐️

MY SOUL LOOKS BACK by Jessica B Harris - a memoir

BLACK LESBIAN IN WHITE AMERICA by Anita Cornwell

- non fiction LGBTQ ⭐️

IN THE WAKE by Christina Sharpe - a book on Spirituality, Religion or Ritual ⭐️

THE HEALING by Gayl Jones - a book that’s features Patois, Creole, Southern vernacular or slang ⭐️

BLACK IMAGINATION curated by Natasha Marin - a book of poetry/prose

Are you taking part in TFBWL Reading Challenge this year? If so let me know how it’s going and what good books by Black women you have read so far!!

Make sure to use the hashtags -

#TFBWL

#tfbwlreadingchallenge

#TFBWL2020

So I can see your posts and re-share them!!

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⭐️

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[The Free Black Women's Library]

The Free Black Women’s Library/ Three Books

[The Free Black Women's Library]

Friday blessings!!

New additions to The Free Black Women’s Library, some seriously excellent gently used award winning best selling reads, both classic and contemporary.

Super Grateful for this awesome bookstack, that was delivered this morning. ♥️👌🏿📚

Last time I counted there were 2500 #books in the library but it’s probably more like 3000 at this point. Our brilliance and creativity is truly infinite.

[The Free Black Women's Library]

“Toni Cade Bambara took up the politics of revolution, family, and knowledge production with decidedly less ambivalence than Murray. Her 1970 collection of essays, poetry, and cultural criticism, BLACK WOMAN, offered a resounding response to the cultural and intellectual discombobulation that had framed the works of Pierce and Cruse.”

“Bambara and her colleagues considered a range of issues relevant to Black women’s lives, turning them inside out, interrogating their relevance, discarding the ideas that were not useful and offering a new set of conceptual frames for thinking and writing about Black women’s lives and organizing for black liberation. Bambara and her comrades did not see Black women’s lives through the framework of a problem. Rather like Cooper, they looked at Black women’s lives and their embodied experience as a space of possibility.”

- 🤩⭐️🤩

Dr. Brittney Cooper in BEYOND RESPECTABILITY speaking on THE BLACK WOMAN/An Anthology edited by Toni Cade Bambara.

I love when it feels like my books are talking to each other. When one book references another to make a point more salient and precise. This conversation on the range and scope of Black women intellectuals is especially rich and potent. 🤓💚

#blkfemfridays

[The Free Black Women's Library]

Gorgeous TFBWL throwback photos from this August 2019, when we were stationed at the lovely MOCADA House on Governors Island for a day of Black Feminist/Womanist Literary Games.

I made up clues and questions for our own version of Charades, TV/Film and Jeopardy. It was cute!!

We also traded an amazing amount of excellent books by Black women. Such an awesome fun day. ♥️📚♥️📚♥️📚

Join us tomorrow (Sunday 8/23) for our first meet up/gathering since the Covid shut down, weather predictions 82 degrees & sunny 🎉☀️🎉☀️ 🎉

We will be in Von King Park, Bed-Stuy Brooklyn from noon - 5. Masks are REQUIRED to trade books, we will also have gloves and hand sanitizer on site.

Come check out the collection and enjoy this beautiful Black August Sunday with us. ☺️☺️

All genres of good books written by Black women are accepted for trading. Register to attend via eventbrite link, see you then!! 📚♥️🌹☀️☺️🎉

The Free Black Women's Library - Black August Social Distance Pop Up

The Free Black Women's Library Social Distance Pop Up

Eventbrite

[The Free Black Women's Library]

I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies

dedicated to the Poet Agostinho Neta,

President of The People’s Republic of Angola: 1976

by June Jordan

I

I will no longer lightly walk behind

a one of you who fear me:

Be afraid.

I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits and facial tics

I will not walk politely on the pavements anymore

and this is dedicated in particular

to those who hear my footsteps or the insubstantial rattling of my grocery cart

then turn around

see me

and hurry on

away from this impressive terror I must be:

I plan to blossom bloody on an afternoon surrounded by my comrades singing terrible revenge in merciless accelerating

rhythms

But

I have watched a blind man studying his face.

I have set the table in the evening and sat down

to eat the news

Regularly

I have gone to sleep.

There is no one to forgive me. The dead do not give a damn.

I live like a lover who drops her dime into the phone just as the subway shakes into the station wasting her message

canceling the question of her car:

fulminating or forgetful but late and always after the fact they could save or condemn me

I must become the action of my fate.

🖤⭐️♥️⭐️🖤⭐️♥️⭐️🖤⭐️

The complete version of this iconic poem is featured in the poetry collection HARUKO/LOVE POEMS published in 1994 by High Risk Books and features a foreword written by Adrienne Rich. 🖤⭐️🖤