Literary Involvement in Black Lives Matter

Statement of Intent

Undergraduate Students for Publishing at Emerson College stands with the Black community. The murder of George Floyd is but the iceberg tip of this nation’s pandemic of hatred and violence toward black lives. We call upon all Pub Club members, past and present, to take action in support of Black Lives Matter. This is justice achieved by protest, petitions, and monetary funds to groups built for social justice, memorials, bail-outs, and Black representation. Most importantly, this justice is achieved by supporting black people in all walks of life, from activists to artists and everyone between and beyond. It is achieved by recognizing and pursuing change in institutionalized and, in non-black peoples, internalized racism. We acknowledge this is not just those acts of injustice that are easy to condemn, such as blatant physical attacks on Black people by the police. We challenge our members to discover the subtler, more uncomfortable, and less obvious truths of the United State’s inherent prejudice. We prioritize the publishing industry’s need for more Black representation, both in the office and on the page, and we challenge ourselves as aspiring publishers, editors, marketers, designers, marketers, and more to envision and seek out long-term change in this industry. 

*We would like to provide you with a list of various resources to get started. This list is by no means exhaustive, so if you think we’ve left something out, then please let us know! We can always add more information.

Articles to Get Started

Independent Presses to Support

Literatures

Publishers Weekly has compiled a great list of Non-fiction Anti-Racist Reading

  • A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
  • Black Marxism by Cederic J. robinson
  • Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. Du Bois
  • A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
  • Becoming a Parent in the Age of Black Lives Matter by Clint Smith
  • The American Nightmare by Ibram X. Kendi
  • Red Summer by Cameron McWhirter
  • “The Source of Self-Regard” by Toni Morrison
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  • Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
  • Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
  • Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Dr. Brittney Cooper
  • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  • Heavy: And American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
  • The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  • How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  • Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
  • The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  • I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
  • This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa
  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
  • Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  • “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till” by Gwendolyn Brooks

*List based in part by Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein

Black-Owned Bookstores

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Instagrammers

To add Black voices to your feeds, we’ve compiled a list of Black Bookstagrammers for you to follow:

Please be sure to comment on this post if we’ve missed any resources!

Stay tuned for fundraising opportunities with Pub Club for Black Lives Matter!

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