black books matter
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Mariah Carey's Latest No. 1? Her Bestselling Memoir
She’s the songbird with the voice that gives us butterflies, but Mariah Carey’s latest hit is of the literary variety: Her recently released and much-buzzed-about memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, is No. 1 for nonfiction on the New York’s Times Bestsellers Print Hardcover list. The news broke on Wednesday night (when many of us…
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Black Authors Stand Out on the National Book Awards’ Shortlist of Finalists
Black talent got a prestigious shout-out when the 2020 finalists for the National Book Awards were announced on Tuesday. The 25 honorees and their titles, considered the best literature in America by the National Book Foundation, join previous winners like Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jesmyn Ward in a diverse pool of talent and topics…
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Did You Know Reading Black Books Is Also a Form of Resistance?
Pages worth of protest may be sitting right on your bookshelves. This October kicked off during Banned Books Week, traditionally observed annually in the last week of September; but the history behind the censorship of books is worth revisiting any day of the year. In 1982, just a year into the escalating conservatism of the…
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Misty Copeland’s Bunheads Is for Children, but There’s a Message for Everyone at the Barre
Last Tuesday, there were several ways you could have spent your 7 pm hour in the Eastern Standard Time Zone—including, but not limited to, witnessing an embattled president categorically lower a standard he’d set in public tantrum-throwing. But in a kinder, gentler section of the internet that evening, positivity and light abounded as Misty Copeland…
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'We Can't Be Afraid to Challenge Our Own People': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Gets Crunk With Brittney Cooper
“There is no Black Freedom Project if you don’t care about Black women.” If there’s one belief upon which “crunk feminist,” author, scholar and educator Brittney Cooper has based her life’s work, it’s this core tenet of Black feminism, as previously maintained by brilliant minds from the Combahee River Collective to 19th-century pioneers like Maria…
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'Black People Are America's True Founding Fathers': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Launches With 1619 Project Creator Nikole Hannah-Jones
“I just want people to know the date 1619,” is what New York Times investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones told her editor when pitching the journalistic opus we now know as The 1619 Project. Launched in August 2019, the landmark issue compiled some of the greatest writers and thought leaders of our time to commemorate the…
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Read, Write, Revolt: The Root Launches the It's Lit! Podcast With Inaugural Guest Nikole Hannah-Jones
Autumn has only just begun, but 2020 has already been a study in contrasts: Some of us have taken to the streets, but even more of us spent an unprecedented amount of our time at home this year. Our discourse has unimaginably become even more divided, but we are holding our loved ones and ideals…
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Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Miss Cicely Tyson Will Bless Us in 2021
In 1974, Cicely Tyson simultaneously earned her first and second Primetime Emmy awards (for Best Lead Actress in a Drama and Actress of the Year – Special) as well as a BAFTA (for Best Actress in a Leading Role) for her starring role in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. She would win her third…
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Black Authors Will Be the Standouts at This Year’s (Virtual) National Book Festival
In 2001, when the Library of Congress’ inaugural National Book Festival kicked off in Washington, D.C., some 50 award-winning authors, illustrators and storytellers peopled the pop-up tents on the East Lawn of the U.S. Capitol to read excerpts of their work, sign their books and interact with fans. That was September 9. Two days later,…
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Sunny Hostin Says ABC Censored Her New Memoir, Which Details Discrimination Allegations
Did ABC execs insist on removing segments of The View co-host Sunny Hostin’s new memoir, I Am These Truths? As Hostin told Ronan Farrow in a candid conversation about her new book, which debuted today, September 22, yes, they did. The memoir, named in reference to the Constitution, apparently shares revealing insights about Hostin’s Afro-Latinx…