Join us for a conversation with Dr. Maxine Smith on her book The Midnight Mayor of Charleston (The Henry Smith Story). Like the book and told in six chapters, this discussion series will take place at six different branches with each location mirroring a different chapter and featuring appearances from leaders and members of the community. Space will be limited. Call your branch to register for this event today!
CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH WITH TIYA MILES’S AWARD-WINNING BOOK AND RELIVE HER SESSION AT CHARLESTON LITERARY FESTIVAL 2021
In 1850s Charleston, Rose, an enslaved woman, was facing an impossible situation. Her nine-year-old daughter Ashley was to be separated from her through forcible sale in South Carolina’s slave market. In a gesture of motherly love, she packed a small sack containing basic provisions for Ashley to carry with her.
Harvard historian Tiya Miles’s National Book Award-winning work, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsakeevokes the story behind this sack and its legacy. This artifact is not just a story of forced separation, loss, and generational love; it also tells us about enslaved black women’s methods of survival.
In conversation with Kameelah Martin at the Charleston Literary Festival 2021, Tiya Miles says, “Ashley’s sack shows us that black women’s history is real, it is rich, and we can access it if only we listen to black women’s stories.”
This Black History Month, you can view this powerful conversation between Tiya Miles and Kameelah Martin, Dean of the Graduate School at the College of Charleston on YouTube, HERE.
You can also purchase a copy of All That She Carried from Buxton Books or via Bookshop.
Ukweli is the Swahili word for truth. This book meets this moment in America as a healing truth to overcome the trauma of slavery and the decades of violence that followed it. The personal accounts and insights from forty-five writers and poets will educate White Americans about the systematic racial bias employed to stymie African American progress.
Ukweli provides insight into the struggles Black people have faced as they’ve made substantial contributions to America, and helped to define its soul. It shows a part of American history often overlooked or misunderstood. Inspired by a poetry, lecture, and dialogue series of the same name organized by poet Horace Mungin in 2020 at Charleston’s McLeod Plantation.
Ukweli, Searching for Healing Truth: Hakim Abdul-Ali • Marcus Amaker • Kim Nesta Archung • Steve Bailey • William P. Baldwin • Al Black • James M. Brailsford III • Millicent E. Brown • Vicki Callahan • Karen Chandler • Portia E. Cobb • Tim Conroy • Sara Makeba Daise • Heather L. Hodges • Damon Fordham • Adrienne Troy Frazier • Herb Frazier • Savannah J. Frierson • Shawn Halifax • Jonathan Haupt • Stephen G. Hoffius • Gloria Holmes • Josephine Humphreys • Gary Jackson • DeMett E. Jenkins • Marnishia Jenkins-Tate • Patricia Bligen Jones • Ed Madden • Susan Madison • Joseph McGill Jr. • Ray McManus • Karen Meadows • Kennae Miller • Horace Mungin • Porchia Moore • Yvette R. Murray • Hampton R. Olfus Jr. • Adam Parker • Bernard E. Powers Jr. • Elizabeth Robin • Aïda Rogers • Margaret Seidler • Teresa Speight • Jennie L. Stephens • Kieran “Kerry” Taylor • Ronda Taylor • LaTisha Vaughn • Marjory Wentworth • Ernest L. Wiggins • Treva Williams
Regina E. Williams is a poet, writer, and writing consultant whose poetry and fiction have appeared worldwide. She has performed her work nationally in high schools, colleges, churches, as well as on national radio. She has participated in various panel discussions and dialogues on issues relating to the black community, Womanism, and writing. As an associate with Writer’s Insight, a writing consultant agency, Regina designed and conducted writing workshops for students and teachers in high schools, colleges, and various civic and community institutions and organizations.
She also served as a Managing Editor for Metro Exchange a monthly newspaper published by Intergroup Marketing & Communications, Inc. Regina is a founding member of Metamorphosis Writer’s Collective and “Ain’t I a Woman” Writers Collective, and a member of New Renaissance Writers Guild, and New Bones, a promotion/production group designed to promote black literature and music. Regina grew up in an immigrant community in Brooklyn, New York. She quickly became fascinated with people: the climates and typography of the countries they came from, the musicality or lack of such in the languages they spoke, the uniqueness of the clothes they wore, the different spicing of their foods; the discovery that everyone did not worship as her family did. Her curiosity led her to travel to many places to broaden her understanding of global customs, art, and culture.
Jerome Harris, who is the President of the Charleston Area Branch of ASALH, on April 13th presented to Anna B. Johnson, who a Charleston County Councilperson and Member of Charleston County Public Library Board, books authored by the Association’s founder, Dr. Carter G. Woodson to Charleston County Public Library (CCPL). The library was presented with copies of The Mis-Education of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson’s Appeal and the Negro Orators and their Orations.
Charleston, S.C.—The Mayor’s Book Club, a fun new initiative for kids, will launch today as Mayor John Tecklenburg records a virtual reading of the inaugural book selection, “The Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls,” by Louise Meriwether, which was selected in coordination with a MOJA Festival exhibit currently on display at the City Gallery featuring the book’s illustrations by local artist Jonathan Green.
The initiative, which is available to 4-year-old children throughout the city of Charleston, aims to improve early literacy skills by encouraging reading and helping to prepare children for kindergarten.
Why it matters: With the rise of at-home learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mayor’s Book Club seeks to encourage and challenge young children as they begin to read, while providing a fun and safe virtual activity.
Through monthly virtual readings led by Mayor Tecklenburg, the Mayor’s Book Club aims to help build children’s vocabularies, reading comprehension abilities and overall success with early reading.
How it works: Each month, a new book selection will be announced and a virtual reading with Mayor Tecklenburg will become available on the Book Club website, http://www.mayorsbookclub.net. The Gibbes Museum of Art will also provide a monthly art activity in coordination with the selected book’s themes and illustrations.
Parents or legal guardians may register their four-year-old children for a free membership at Buxton Books, located at 160 King Street, where each monthly book will be available for purchase.
Official membership cards will be distributed to each enrolled child, and certificates of completion will be distributed to participants at the end of the year.
Additional details: In conjunction with this program, The Lowcountry Rice Culture Project, Jonathan Green Studios and Organizational Concepts will sponsor books for children enrolled in early education programs at the Sanders-Clyde Elementary School. Additional sponsorships are being sought to expand the book club to include more children in Head Start and Title 1 Pre-K programs throughout the city.
Support for the Mayor’s Book Club for Kids comes from the Lowcountry Rice Culture Project, Jonathan Green Studios and Organizational Concepts. Other partners include Buxton Books, the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Charleston County Public Library and the Charleston to Charleston Literary Festival.
Learn more: For more information on the Mayor’s Book Club, please visit www.mayorsbookclub.net.
Dr. Bernard Powers talks his new book 101 African Americans Who Shaped South Carolina, the new International African American Museum, & spiked eggnog at library parties with Curtis Rogers for South Carolina State Library’s LibraryVoicesSC podcast!
Charleston Area Branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History 