The Free Black Women's Library, is an interactive Black Feminist mobile trading library and interactive biblio installation that features a collection of 2000 books written by Black women. The library is committed to centering and celebrating the voices of Black Women in literature. This mobile library pops up monthly in unique and radical spaces throughout Brooklyn, NYC and has also been to Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore. PLEASE EMAIL me directly at thefreeblackwomenslibrary@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments about this project.
“A library at night is full of sounds: the unread books can’t stand it any longer and announce their contents, some boasting, some shy, some devious. But the sound I heard wasn’t the sound of a book. It was more like a suppressed cough or sneeze, or a clearing of the throat, or some conclusive, impulsive mix of the three. Everything became very still even the books shut up. I looked at the shelf directly in front of me; I read each title on it, spine after spine there was a gap between the spines into eyes that looked out of it.” - WHAT IS YOURS IS NOT YOURS by Helen Oyeyemi
I love some of the strange spooky little stories in this book so much. 💕👀📚
“Throughout the United States there are more single parent households than ever before in the nation’s history. Yet Black women remain the one group of single parents who are consistently attacked. Assailed on all sides by a white supremacist culture that stereotypes Black women as ‘welfare queens’ by Black men who claim they are victims of these castrating breeders who would rather live off welfare and have a good man support them, and by the shaming judgment of a nation that castigates unmarried poor women who birth children, while idolizing unmarried rich and famous women who choose to parent. Single Black mothers are increasingly represented in the mass media as harsh and uncaring parents. A large group of Black single mothers are alone because they are divorced. They are working mothers, like their non Black counterparts who receive state aid, most of them would relish being economically supported by a caring male provider. Its a myth that Black women prefer to raise children alone. Even most single professional woman living alone who choose to adopt a child would prefer sharing parenting with a caring partner. Parenting alone is difficult work. No one knows this better than Black women. And it is even more difficult when women are poor.” - Cherishing Single Mothers/SALVATION:BLACK PEOPLE & LOVE 🖤📚 I admit in the past I have had some shame around being single mother, there is an extra load of life labor that comes with that, society does not make it easy, many moments are laced with passive aggressive judgment, comments, assumptions and questions. It gets awkward. I have felt the stench of the stigma and also a sense of failure. Like I failed my daughter and myself. I stayed in a toxic relationship far too long in an effort to make it work because I thought it would make my childs life better. Community has more options, honor and respect for a two parent household, especially if its man & woman, whether it’s loving or not. At the end of the day it felt more sustainable self loving and honest to choose this more awkward extremely challenging path. Grateful to @bellhooks_ for her cherishing words in this sweet book, also grateful that my shame is released.
Swooning over this gorgeous book that features the work of multidisciplinary artist Howardena Pindell, WHAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN is a beautifully illustrated monograph that highlights this gifted artist’s paintings, photography, film and performance. It examine her vast and impressive career both in and outside the studio, and also includes excerpts of her writing on critical topics such as feminism and racial politics. It’s ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“And if ever someone calls my child a terrorist, if they call any of the children in my life terrorists, I will hold my child, any child, close to me and I will explain that terrorism is being stalked and surveilled simply because you are alive. And terrorism is being put in solitary confinement and starved and beaten. And terrorism is not being able to feed your children despite working three jobs. And terrorism is not having a decent school or a place to play. I will tell them that what freedom looks like, what democracy looks like is the push for a realization of justice, dignity and peace.“ WHEN THEY CALL YOU A TERRORIST by Patrisse Khan Cullors & asha bandele 🖤
The Free Black Women’s Library session for April is tomorrow Sunday, 4/29 at Ancient Light Studio, 521 Halsey Street, feel free to stop by, as we discuss this pivotal powerful memoir. It is dense and beautiful and raw. This book explores and breaks down connections between violence and poverty. The power of community and organizing. The beauty and significance of family and culture, and so much more. I will also be offering a writing ritual inspired by this book.
All are welcome to come check out the library’s diverse collection, donate or trade books written by Black women, read, write, draw, eat, flirt, nap or just chill in the space. The library opens at 1p and our conversation begins at 3p
See you then 🖤⭐️✌🏾
“You know, we are the daughters of Ida B. Wells. We’re the daughters of every Black woman who has been a leader - Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and all the millions of unnamed warriors. All the millions of unnamed ones. We are in a long line. We’re just calling it- we’re calling it what it is now - Black feminism is a representation of Black women’s power. Black women’s agency. Black women’s right to look at their material conditions, analyze it, interrogate it, and come away with an analysis that’s about empowerment.” - Demita Frazier/HOW WE GET FREE : Black Feminism and The Combahee River Collective edited by Keeanga - Yamahtta Taylor 🖤⭐️🖤⭐️
”In a way, her strangeness, her naïveté, her craving for the other half of her equation was the consequence of idle imagination. Had she paints, or clay, or knew the discipline of the dance, or strings; had she anything to engage her tremendous curiosity and her gift for metaphor, she might have exchanged the restlessness and preoccupation with whim for an activity that provided her with all she yearned for. And like any artist with no art form, she became dangerous.” - SULA by Toni Morrison 🖤
My daughter’s 10th grade English class is reading one of my favorite books. This is the second book by a Black woman that she’s been assigned since starting high school. I consider it slow progress as I wasn’t assigned one book written by a Black woman during my high school days. Although I read a bunch of Black women authors on my own, my first class required book was as a freshman in college, it was THE BLUEST EYE also by Toni Morrison, and analyzing its content with my white classmates was hella awkward. Despite that I loved it and it led me down a path of devouring her every word.
What was the first book by a Black woman that you were assigned to read in a class/course?
What impact did it have on you?
Did the story make sense?
Did you love it/hate it? Let me know 🤓📚
The Free Black Women’s Library is thrilled to be hosting a very special event this coming Tuesday April 24th!! We are celebrating the release of THE GIRL WHO SMILED BEADS!! It’s a book party, yay!! 🎊 🎉🎈🙌🏾📚🖤 Join us at the lovely Cafe Con Libros, 👌🏾@cafeconlibros_bk - a feminist bookstore and coffee shop, for book reading, author signing and conversation on this incredible and beautifully written memoir. In it Clemantine shares the powerful story of her and her sister Claire escaping war, and moving through seven African countries for six years searching for safety. This book offers an intimate look at the effects of the Rwandan massacre as well as an honest examination of sisterhood, the lingering effects of trauma, the things and ways we survive. I am so excited to sit in conversation with @clemantine1 !! 🖤🖤🖤 There will be a limited amount of copies of the book available for sale on site. Cafe con Libros is located at 524 Prospect, the event starts at 6.30 and the discussion begins at 7. Hope to see you there!!
“Say something happens - say a bird hits this window right here. You and I, we’re strangers in our strange costumes. We’ve come to this moment from different places. I might be terrified of the smash and the carnage, recoil as if the bird where a bomb. You might think I’m overreacting and say, it’s just a bird. What’s wrong with me? Or what’s wrong with you? If I don’t share with you my history, if I don’t explain what I brought with me to this moment in time – that to me the bird hitting the windows sounded like a shell detonating – then how could you know me? If I’m shaking, trying to bring myself back to objective reality, saying to myself. It’s a bird, right it’s a bird, right it’s a bird, right? And I don’t share with you my trauma, I alienate myself. I push you away.
All the things that we do not say create not just space but a force field between us, a constant energetic pressure. Two people in pain are magnets, repelling each other. We cannot or will not reach across the space to connect.” -
The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya @clemantine1
Easing back into social media after a sweet fun time in Paris
This is the exact moment I finished this amazing memoir which I devoured while riding the maze that is the Paris metro. I finished it early morning on the balcony of the little flat we were staying in. It’s so intense and good. It offers an intimate and necessary account of the Rwandan massacre.
This book tells the story of Clemantine and Clair, two sisters who fled the massacre as children ages 6 and 15, and spent six years wandering through seven African countries searching for safety, family, home. It is both heartbreaking and inspiring.
Outside of Afrofuturism and Black Feminist text, Memoirs by Black women are quickly becoming my next favorite genre, I love the unique voice of each writer as they share all the gritty details of their lives, how they resist struggle and survive. It gives me tears and wings. It feels intimate and sacred. 🖤 #book #memoir #goodread #blackwomanauthor #blackbooks #blacklibrary #readingislife #springbreak #havebookwilltravel #thegirlwhosmiledbeads #freeblackwoman #bibliophiles #freeblackwomenslibrary
H is for Helen 💕
Get into the gorgeous and surreal writing of British born Nigerian Helen Oyeyemi. This award winning writer published her first novel ICARUS GIRL at the tender age of 18, and has gone on to bless us bibliophiles with beautifully written long fiction and short stories that is wonderful, fascinating and strange. Often blending a wide range of themes and drawing from fairy tales and mythology. Love her work.
She will take you on a literary trip that will surely blow your mind 💕
Novels include
Icarus Girl
The Opposite House *
White is for Witching *
Boy, Snow, Bird
What Is Not Yours, Is Not Yours
