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Category: Civic literacy

Black Men Reading/Books/Civic literacy/Education/Literacy/Raymond Williams/Writing

Black Men Reading: Raymond Williams, PART ONE

Posted on August 15, 2018 by Leslie Reese / 18 Comments

Greetings! I’m pleased to bring you another installment of the Black Men Reading Series. Doing this series is allowing me to exchange and collaborate thoughtful...

Books/Civic literacy/Coffee Table Books/Literacy/Maxine Waters/Photography

#Throwback Thursday: I Dream A World and Maxine Waters

Posted on March 30, 2017 by Leslie Reese / 16 Comments

ā€œIn fact, all of the women in this book have dreamed of a world not only better for themselves but for generations to come, a world where character and ability ...

Activism/Biography/Books/Civic literacy/Coretta Scott King/LOVE/Martin Luther King Jr./Memoir

Desert Rose: The Life and Legacy of Coretta Scott King

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Leslie Reese / 14 Comments

After seeing the photograph of the lapel pins in my post, Where Is The Love? Reflections on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I received a few texts and emails askin...

Activism/Civic literacy/folklore/Literacy/LOVE/Martin Luther King Jr./Memoir/Musings

Where Is The Love? Reflections On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Leslie Reese / 30 Comments

When we were children in the 1960s and 1970s, family who had migrated from the south to cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and Indianapolis made annual ca...

Activism/Civic literacy/Education/Folks/Literacy/Margaret Burroughs/Nevada Montgomery/Visual Art

Legacy & Social Justice Educator: Nevada Montgomery

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Leslie Reese / 10 Comments

ā€œI ask you. What will your legacy be? Will it be the fact that you helped somebody along the way, during the time while you were here on earth? What will your l...

Civic literacy/LOVE/Musings

True Names: Reflecting on Lost Lives

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Leslie Reese / 7 Comments

ā€œPlease call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.ā€** I am in pain over our nation’s ...

Activism/Books/Civic literacy/Grace Lee Boggs

Living For Change: Grace Lee Boggs, A Beautiful American, (1915-2015)

Posted on October 5, 2015 by Leslie Reese / 11 Comments

A friend sent me an email today to let me know about the passing of Grace Lee Boggs. She lived to be a strong 100 years old! If you don’t know anything ab...

Have You Read These?

  • Black Men Reading: Chef Omar Tate, PART ONE
  • “The Transformative Power of Reading and Writing”
  • In Memorium: Mary Oliver’s Blue Horses
  • Black Men Reading: Rod Kelly Hines, PART TWO
  • Black Men Reading: Rod Kelly Hines, PART ONE

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Artwork by the late Tom Feelings from Soul Looks Back In Wonder (1993)

Chew the Fat! (Comments)

  • Audra T. Russell on Black Men Reading: Chef Omar Tate, PART ONE
  • Audra T. Russell on Memory of First Reads
  • Audra Russell on “The Transformative Power of Reading and Writing”
  • Leslie Reese on “The Transformative Power of Reading and Writing”
  • Leslie Reese on “The Transformative Power of Reading and Writing”
  • Leslie Reese on “The Transformative Power of Reading and Writing”

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Writing Desk belonging to Ida B. Wells -journalist, anti-lynching activist, suffragette- on view at DuSable Museum of African American history.

Instagram

  • I’m so excited to introduce you to Chef Omar Tate (@coltrane215 ), creator of @honeysuckle_popup. He brings a love of Black Heritage and Literature to his kitchen aesthetic.
In our Black Men Reading SeriesšŸ–¤ exchange, Chef Omar Tate shares why he appreciates the series. We also talk about black men and emotional literacy; the idea behind creating Honeysuckle, his Black Heritage dining experience; books, writing, and more! PART ONE is up in the blog, today. Link in bio!
#culinarydelight #read #write #cook #poetry #emotionalliteracy #blackheritagedining #Honeysucklepopup #eat #ChefOmarTate #blackmenreadingseriesšŸ–¤ #Blackmenreading #blackmenreading
  • Vintage books and coffee with multi-colored stones for literary birthdays. Swipe leftā¬…ļø for close ups of this 1975 Bantam edition of Sula by Toni Morrison (b. February 18, 1931); and 1983 reprint of From a Land Where Other People Live by Audre Lorde originally published by Dudley Randall on Broadside Press in 1973. Audre Lorde was born on February 18, 1934; she died on November 17, 1992. From a Land Where Other People Live was a National Book Award Finalist for Poetry in 1974.
#ToniMorrison #AudreLorde #Sula #Fromalandwhereotherpeoplelive #books #read #write #bookstagram #booksandcoffee #vintagebooks #vintagepaperbacks #BroadsidePress #DudleyRandall #poetry #womenwriters #blackwomenwriters #literarybirthdays
  • Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones in ā€œClaudineā€ (1974). #filmclassics #diahanncarroll #jamesearljones #films #movies #classicmovies #classicblackmovies #classicblackfilms #Claudine #themakingsofyou
  • For #ReadSoulLit day 6: in the street. I’ve owned this book for so long (since it was first published in 2003)! I’ve decided to finally read it. Edward P. Jones’s The Known World. #books #read #bookstagram #edwardpjones #theknownworld #blackhistorymonth2019 #americanwriters #blackamericanwriters #blackwritersmatter #readsoullit
  • ā€œthank you, Lord, for the rain,/for the splash of racing tires/in the dark, steaming pavement river./cooling rain,/grey sheets against the violet sky/of evening, ah...thank you for the dripping-wet/of trees, grass, buds,/smell of soaking earth in the evening./thank you for the pillows of mist, thank you, thank you, for the cool, cooling rain.ā€ - from the poem, ā€œRainritualsā€ by Aneb Kgositsile.
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I am proud to have been touched by the generous life’s work of Dr. Gloria House/Aneb Kgositsile. She is the 2019 Kresge Eminent Artist! She is being acknowledged for her tireless work as a poet, essayist, educator, and activist; and the honor comes with a $50,000 award. Shown here are her two earliest books of poetry, Blood River(1983) and Rainrituals(1989). She has since published two more collections: Shrines(2003), and Medicine(2017). Cover art on Rainrituals is by #RomareBearden. Dr. House has raised a wonderful son; is a retired college professor; has supported and mentored generations of poets (myself included) and social and political activists for more than 50 years; and continues to be a vital and gracious warrior today. Swipe leftā¬…ļøā¬…ļøfor a recent photo of Dr. Aneb Gloria House, and one of us taken by Willie Williams circa 1989 with poet/scholar Murray Jackson(1926-2002) and (seated) poet and founder of Broadside Press Dudley Randall(1914-2000). #gloriahouse #anebkgositsile #poetry #read #write #activism #socialjusticewarrior #kresgeemimentartist2019 #rainrituals #bloodriver #books #murrayjackson #dudleyrandall #bookstagram @kresgeartsdet 
#literaryDetroit #Detroit #BroadsidePress #booksandcoffee
  • ā€œBut in the city/in which I love you,/no one comes,/no one/meets me in the brick clefts;/in the wedged dark,
no finger touches me secretly, no mouth/tastes my flawless salt,/no one awakens the honey in the cells, finds the humming/in the ribs, the rich business in the recesses;/hulls clogged, I continue laden, translated....ā€ from The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee (b.1957).
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Thank you to @d.a._bennett for posting Li-Young Lee in your feed, recently; I forgot how much I have loved his work. In the 1990s (before internet and social media and ebooks, etc.), I happened upon his collection, The City in Which I Love You(1990) while browsing longingly for some sort of life-lifting-saving something to speak to me interiorly. This work did that, then. More than a decade later I got to meet Li-Young Lee and told him I was an admirer of his work and he signed my two books. (SWIPE LEFTā¬…ļøā¬…ļøā¬…ļø). Li- Young Lee has published other collections as well: Rose(1986), The Winged Seed(1996), Book Of My Nights(2001), Behind My Eyes (2008), and The Undressing(2018). I haven’t kept up with his newer work - maybe I’ll get caught up😊. #read #books #poetry #LiYoungLee #thecityinwhichiloveyou #bookofmynights #bookstagram #leslieshandknits #knitting

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