The State of Black Girls is a non-fiction piece whose aim is to empower young black girls in the face of the obstacles that stand before them each day. This book offers perspectives, activities, and prompts that can help you to know what factors are at play in life and in society, and how to navigate them with poise and success.
"Strong Black Girls lays bare the harm Black women and girls are expected to overcome in order to receive an education in America. It captures the routinely muffled voices and experiences of these students through storytelling, essays, letters, and poetry. The authors make clear that the strength of Black women and girls should not merely be defined as the ability to survive racism, abuse, and violence. Readers will also see resistance and resilience emerge through the central themes that shape these reflective, coming-of-age narratives. Each chapter is punctuated by discussion questions that extend the conversation around the everyday realities of navigating K-12 schools, such as sexuality, intergenerational influence, self-love, anger, leadership, aesthetic trauma (hair and body image), erasure, rejection, and unfiltered Black girlhood. Strong Black Girls is essential reading for everyone tasked with teaching, mentoring, programming, and policymaking for Black females in all public institutions. Book Features: ]A spotlight on the invisible barriers impacting Black girls' educational trajectories. ]A survey of the intersectional notions of strength and Black femininity within the context of K-12 schooling. ]Narrative therapy through unpacking system stories of oppression and triumph. ]Insights for building skills and tools to make substantial and lasting change in schools"--
One of Kirkus Review's Best Books About Being Black in America "Powerful... Calling for Black women (in and out of the public eye) to be treated with empathy, Blay’s pivotal work will engage all readers, especially fans of Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism." —Kirkus (Starred) An empowering and celebratory portrait of Black women—from Josephine Baker to Aunt Viv to Cardi B. In 2013, film and culture critic Zeba Blay was one of the first people to coin the viral term #carefreeblackgirls on Twitter. As she says, it was “a way to carve out a space of celebration and freedom for Black women online.” In this collection of essays, Carefree Black Girls, Blay expands on this initial idea by delving into the work and lasting achievements of influential Black women in American culture--writers, artists, actresses, dancers, hip-hop stars--whose contributions often come in the face of bigotry, misogyny, and stereotypes. Blay celebrates the strength and fortitude of these Black women, while also examining the many stereotypes and rigid identities that have clung to them. In writing that is both luminous and sharp, expansive and intimate, Blay seeks a path forward to a culture and society in which Black women and their art are appreciated and celebrated.
In this lyrical coming-of-age story about family, sisterhood, music, race, and identity, Schneider Family Book Award and Stonewall Honor-winning author Mariama J. Lockington draws on some of the emotional truths from her own experiences growing up with an adoptive white family. I am a girl but most days I feel like a question mark. Makeda June Kirkland is eleven years old, adopted, and black. Her parents and big sister are white, and even though she loves her family very much, Makeda often feels left out. When Makeda's family moves from Maryland to New Mexico, she leaves behind her best friend, Lena— the only other adopted black girl she knows— for a new life. In New Mexico, everything is different. At home, Makeda’s sister is too cool to hang out with her anymore and at school, she can’t seem to find one real friend. Through it all, Makeda can’t help but wonder: What would it feel like to grow up with a family that looks like me? Through singing, dreaming, and writing secret messages back and forth with Lena, Makeda might just carve a small place for herself in the world. For Black Girls Like Me is for anyone who has ever asked themselves: How do you figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you came from?
From award-winning YA author Brandy Colbert comes a debut middle-grade novel about the only two Black girls in town who discover a collection of hidden journals revealing shocking secrets of the past. Beach-loving surfer Alberta has been the only Black girl in town for years. Alberta's best friend, Laramie, is the closest thing she has to a sister, but there are some things even Laramie can't understand. When the bed and breakfast across the street finds new owners, Alberta is ecstatic to learn the family is black—and they have a 12-year-old daughter just like her. Alberta is positive she and the new girl, Edie, will be fast friends. But while Alberta loves being a California girl, Edie misses her native Brooklyn and finds it hard to adapt to small-town living. When the girls discover a box of old journals in Edie's attic, they team up to figure out exactly who's behind them and why they got left behind. Soon they discover shocking and painful secrets of the past and learn that nothing is quite what it seems.
Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Just 16 percent of female students, Black girls make up more than one-third of all girls with a school-related arrest. The first trade book to tell these untold stories, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. For four years Monique W. Morris, author of Black Stats, chronicled the experiences of black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Morris shows how, despite obstacles, stigmas, stereotypes, and despair, black girls still find ways to breathe remarkable dignity into their lives in classrooms, juvenile facilities, and beyond.
Black Girlhood, Punishment, and Resistance: Reimagining Justice for Black Girls in Virginia provides a historical comprehensive examination of racialized, classed, and gendered punishment of Black girls in Virginia during the early twentieth century. It looks at the ways in which the court system punished Black girls based upon societal accepted norms of punishment, hinged on a notion that they were to be viewed and treated as adults within the criminal legal system. Further, the book explores the role of Black Club women and girls as agents of resistance against injustice by shaping a social justice framework and praxis for Black girls and by examining the establishment of the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls. This school was established by the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs and its first President, Janie Porter Barrett. This book advances contemporary criminological understanding of punishment by locating the historical origins of an environment normalizing unequal justice. It draws from a specific focus on Janie Porter Barrett and the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls; a groundbreaking court case of the first female to be executed in Virginia; historical newspapers; and Black Women’s Club archives to highlight the complexities of Black girls’ experiences within the criminal justice system and spaces created to promote social justice for these girls. The historical approach unearths the justice system’s role in crafting the pervasive devaluation of Black girlhood through racialized, gendered, and economic-based punishment. Second, it offers insight into the ways in which, historically, Black women have contributed to what the book conceptualizes as “resistance criminology,” offering policy implications for transformative social and legal justice for Black girls and girls of color impacted by violence and punishment. Finally, it offers a lens to explore Black girl resistance strategies, through the lens of the Black Girlhood Justice framework. Black Girlhood, Punishment, and Resistance uses a historical intersectionality framework to provide a comprehensive overview of cultural, socioeconomic, and legal infrastructures as they relate to the punishment of Black girls. The research illustrates how the presumption of guilt of Black people shaped the ways that punishment and the creation of deviant Black female identities were legally sanctioned. It is essential reading for academics and students researching and studying crime, criminal justice, theoretical criminology, women’s studies, Black girlhood studies, history, gender, race, and socioeconomic class. It is also intended for social justice organizations, community leaders, and activists engaged in promoting social and legal justice for the youth.
Long portrayed as a masculine endeavor, the African American struggle for progress often found expression through an unlikely literary figure: the black girl. Nazera Sadiq Wright uses heavy archival research on a wide range of texts about African American girls to explore this understudied phenomenon. As Wright shows, the figure of the black girl in African American literature provided a powerful avenue for exploring issues like domesticity, femininity, and proper conduct. The characters' actions, however fictional, became a rubric for African American citizenship and racial progress. At the same time, their seeming dependence and insignificance allegorized the unjust treatment of African Americans. Wright reveals fascinating girls who, possessed of a premature knowing and wisdom beyond their years, projected a courage and resiliency that made them exemplary representations of the project of racial advance and citizenship.
“It’s a good thing that this is only the first book of a trilogy, because after getting to know Tabitha, you won’t want to leave her at the end. . . . Written intimately as if you’re peering into the mind of a close friend, this book is a true testament to the stresses on women today and how great girlfriends (and grandmothers) are often the key to our sanity.” — Good Morning America The first novel in a captivating three-book series about modern womanhood, in which a young Black woman must rely on courage, laughter, and love—and the support of her two longtime friends—to overcome an unexpected setback that threatens the most precious thing she’s ever wanted. Tabitha Walker is a black woman with a plan to “have it all.” At 33 years old, the checklist for the life of her dreams is well underway. Education? Check. Good job? Check. Down payment for a nice house? Check. Dating marriage material? Check, check, and check. With a coveted position as a local news reporter, a "paper-perfect" boyfriend, and even a standing Saturday morning appointment with a reliable hairstylist, everything seems to be falling into place. Then Tabby receives an unexpected diagnosis that brings her picture-perfect life crashing down, jeopardizing the keystone she took for granted: having children. With her dreams at risk of falling through the cracks of her checklist, suddenly she is faced with an impossible choice between her career, her dream home, and a family of her own. With the help of her best friends, the irreverent and headstrong Laila and Alexis, the mom jeans-wearing former "Sexy Lexi," and the generational wisdom of her grandmother and the nonagenarian firebrand Ms. Gretchen, Tabby explores the reaches of modern medicine and tests the limits of her relationships, hoping to salvage the future she always dreamed of. But the fight is all consuming, demanding a steep price that forces an honest reckoning for nearly everyone in her life. As Tabby soon learns, her grandmother's age-old adage just might still be true: Black girls must die exhausted.