#mobilelibrary

[mayamiyamaillustration]

Have a happy caturday

幸せなねこようびを🐾🐾

©️maya miyama 2023

[thefreeblackwomanslibrary]

TFBWL BOOKMAIL 🖤📚

Thank you so much to C. a kind book angel from Brooklyn, NY for sending us these literary gems for The Free Black Women’s Library book collection!!

An absolutely marvelous stack that includes

GORILLA, MY LOVE, an incredible selection of short stories written by the great Toni Cade Bambara, published by Vintage Contemporary Books, 1992

BROWN GIRL DREAMING written by prolific best selling YA icon Jacqueline Woodson

WE LOVE YOU CHARLIE FREEMAN the wonderful strange first novel written by the brilliant Kaitlyn Greenidge, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2016

SO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT RACE, a necessary and timely reflection on race, written by the profound Ijeoma Oluo, published by Seal Press, 2018

THE CASTLE CROSS THE MAGNET CARTER, the epic first novel from Kia Corthon, published by Seven Stories Press, 2016

CASTE/THE ORIGINS OF OUR DISCONTENT written by historian, journalist and award winning author Isabel Wilkerson, published by Random House, 2020.

a pop colored chap book entitled POCKET MICHELLE OBAMA WISDOM which features quotes and inspirational insight from our forever FLOTUS

And three plays from Black women playwrights that we absolutely adore

Katori Hall’s CHILDREN OF KILLERS, Tanya Barfield’s BRIGHT HALF LIFE, and THE LIGHT by Loy A. Webb. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Absolutely thrilled to add this wonderfully diverse stack of good reads to our book collection.

Especially excited to add the last three items to our stack of plays, 🎭 which is currently on the slim side. 🙃🎉

Thank you to C. A from Brooklyn for this impeccable contribution!! ♥️📚♥️

The Free Black Women’s Library happily accepts all manner of classic and contemporary texts written by Black women and Black non binary folks.

We love plays, prose, zines, comics, poetry collections, Afro-futurism, YA, memoirs, chapbooks, and so on and so on.

Feel free to send to your literary goodies to:

TFBWL

1072 Bedford Avenue

Box 39

Brooklyn, NY 11216

This is a grassroots community funded project that exists thanks to your donations and contributions.

To support the growth and sustainability of this project join our Patreon community. Link in bio.

Thank you!! 🖤⭐️📚

[foreverneverthere]

The church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Bleadon. According to Pevsner it was build in the 14th Century, the nave being shortened in the 19th Century. The bell tower contains five bells cast by the Bilbie family who also cast the bells for St Andrew’s, Banwell. #church #mobilelibrary #churcharchitecture #nikolauspevsner #bleadon #mobilelibrary #northsomerset (at Church of St Peter & St Paul, Bleadon)

[thefreeblackwomanslibrary]

Drew Gives Founder of The Free Black Women's Library Some Fantastic Surprises

It's VERY Well Deserved.

[thefreeblackwomanslibrary]

The Runaway Witch Tour featuring Junauda Petrus-Nash

The Free Black Wome's Library is excited to be the first stop on THE RUNAWAY WITCH TOUR featuring writer & artist Junauda Petrus-Nash!!!

We are so excited to be the first stop on The Runaway Witch Tour featuring award winning writer Junuada Petrus Nash!! ♥️♥️🎉🎉

[thefreeblackwomanslibrary]

“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 jt, and come away with an analysis that’s about empowerment. “ - Demita Frazier ⭐️📚👌🏿

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We have two more sessions left in our Black Feminist Praxis Reading and Discussion group, for our next one we are discussing the 2017 Haymarket publication, How We Get Free/Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective edited by @keeangayamahtta This incredible book features a collection of interviews with Black women activists and organizers including the founding members of the iconic Combahee River Collective, a trailblazing group of radical Black women and one of the most important organizations to develop out of the anti racist and women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s.

Our circle gathers together next Monday, Dec 9, 7pm @wendyssubway in Bushwick, Brooklyn - all are welcome.

[thefreeblackwomanslibrary]

Toni Morrison book altar🖤📚🙏🏿

@mocada_museum

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We closed this sacred session in honor and deep gratitude of our literary queen, by going round the room and each person completing the statement “Toni Morrison has given me _____ and for that I am ______.”

Each statement shared was so moving, sincere and heartfelt. Thank you to all who came and shared their hearts and minds so freely.

You are appreciated. ♥️

[thefreeblackwomanslibrary]

“Please God” she whispered into the palm of her hand. “Please make me disappear” She squeezed her eyes shut. Little parts of her body faded away. Now slowly, now with a rush. Slowly again. Her fingers went, one by one; then her arms disappeared all the way to the elbow. Her feet now. Yes, that was good. The legs all at once. It was hardest above the thighs. She had to be real still and pull. Her stomach would not go. But finally it, too, went away. Then her chest, her neck. The face was hard, too. Almost done, almost. Only her tight, tight eyes were left. They were always left. Try as she might, she could never get her eyes to disappear. So what was the point? They were everything. Everything was there in them” ⭐️

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I still remember 1st time I read THE BLUEST EYE, it was a life time ago but I do recall how it broke my heart open. It shifted something in me that was deep and frightening, it scared me, I knew this writer was telling me something/even as an avid book reader never in my teenage life, had I read something so painful relatable, it triggered me and healed me at the same time. It uncovered the pain and ugliness of poverty, and the loneliness and trauma that comes with abuse and self loathing. Also the insidious toxic nature of anti Blackness, capitalism, patriarchy and colorism. It was the first book I read where the words and stories of Black girls like me were centered, it was a matter of fact, it became all I needed for decades to come. I saw a kindred spirit in the character of Claudia, who took her white dolls apart and never really actually wanted one, who felt confused frustrated alone and misunderstood, I was so grateful to this writer for creating this character.

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Since Toni Morrison passed away I have been re reading her books, and I wonder how I forgot or maybe blocked out how hard the story of Pecola Breedlove is, I was emotionally exhausted by the end, as a grown Black woman mama who has had a plethora of traumatic experiences and hopefully gained some insight, I’m broken open in a new way, cause now I know for sure that Pecola is not a myth, her story is terrifying, ironic, sad and real. And there is so much power in it being told.