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

Beacon Press
Africa World Press and the Red Sea Press
Black Classic Press
Broadside Lotus Press
Redbone Press
Haymarket Books
Urban Books
Kensington Publishing Corp
Chicago Review Press
Third World Press
Lee and Low Books
Rosen Publishing
Afrocentric Books
BearManor Media
Just Us Books
2Leaf Press
African American Literature Book Club is compiling a list of all Black Owned Publishing Companies

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