Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History

ThisWeekatAuburn Dr. Thaddeus L. Johnson will explore how the application of face recognition technology in the criminal justice system threatens to perpetuate racial inequality. Register at: tinyurl.com/ktuw6fhm . Charis Books & More / Charis Circle, in collaboration with the Auburn Avenue Research Library, welcomes Tiphanie Yanique in conversation with Glory Edim for a celebration of Monster in the Middle: A Novel. From the award-winning author of Land of Love and Drowning,... an electric new novel that maps the emotional inheritance of one couple newly in love. Register at: bit.ly/3zbAaO8 . In Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem, Dr. McGruder explores Payton’s career and its implications for the history of residential segregation. Payton stood up for the right of Black people to live in Harlem in the face of vocal white resistance. Through skillful use of print media, he branded Harlem as a Black community and attracted interest from those interested in racial uplift. Register at: bit.ly/3ChOcQ5 See more

The Auburn Avenue Research Library commemorates the life of Colin Powell, first Black US Secretary of State. (April 5, 1937-October 18, 2021) #restinpeace #colinpowell

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuoso style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality provided one of bebop's most prominent symbols. #AARL #dizzygillespie #fulcolibrary #bebop #fultonreads #benthorn #resolvetoread #jazz #resolvetoresearch #saltpeanuts #librariesstrong #anightintunisia

Don’t miss this conversation on Wednesday: In collaboration with Georgia State University’s (GSU) African American Studies Department, the Auburn Avenue Research Library will host Freedom School, a series of virtual lectures, facilitated by GSU faculty, dedicated to presenting premier Africana academic scholarship and research in an accessible public forum. In Cultivating Genius, Dr. Gholdy E. Muhammad presents a four-layered equity frameworkone that is grounded in history a...nd restores excellence in literacy education. This framework, which she names, Historically Responsive Literacy, was derived from the study of literacy development within 19th-century Black literacy societies. The framework is essential and universal for all students, especially youth of color, who traditionally have been marginalized in learning standards, school policies, and classroom practices. Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is an Associate Professor of Language and Literacy at Georgia State University. Register at https://tinyurl.com/y2439js3

#Thisweekataarl In The Disordered Cosmos, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter -- all with a new spin informed by history, politics, and the wisdom of Star Trek. . In Madam C. J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving, Dr. Freeman highlights how giving shaped Walker’s life before and after she became wealthy. Poor and widowed wh...en she arrived in St. Louis in her twenties, Walker found mentorship among Black churchgoers and working Black women. Her adoption of faith, racial uplift, education, and self-help soon informed her dedication to assisting Black women’s entrepreneurship, financial independence, and activism. . Charis welcomes Mahogany L. Browne in conversation with Tiffany D. Jackson for a celebration of Chlorine Sky, a novel-in-verse about a young girl coming-of-age and stepping out of the shadow of her former best friend. With gritty and heartbreaking honesty, Mahogany L. Browne delivers a novel-in-verse about broken promises, fast rumors, and when growing up means growing apart from your best friend. #aarl #resolvetoread See more

The Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, the archival home of the Ambassador Andrew J. Young Papers (See our finding aids for the papers here https://bit.ly/3qGWmeS) would like to wish the Ambassador a happy 89th birthday. #AARL #AndrewYoung #FCLS

This conversation will explore SEASON 1 EPISODE 5: Strange Case, and SEASON 1 EPISODE 6: Meet Me in Daegu of the HBO television series Lovecraft Country which follows Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) as he embarks on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father (Michael Kenneth Williams). This begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be ripped from an H. P. Lovecraft... paperback. Conversations with Beloved & Kindred is a freeform dialogue on creative works of speculative fiction (i.e. literature, film, television, and art) grounded in the Black lived experience. Inspired by the work of two legends, Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler, Dr. Gipson and Dr. Robinson engage the lived Black experience via reimagined speculative Black pasts and presents, giving voice to the silenced narratives. See more

March is Women’s History Month, and the Auburn Avenue Research Library is dedicated to celebrating African American Women all throughout the year. This Reader’s Advisory focuses on the women of the Harlem Renaissance. This period of artistic expression occurred in New York’s famous Harlem neighborhood between 1915 and 1929. During this period, many great writers such as Nella Larsen, Jessie Redmon Fausset, and Zora Neale Hurston contributed literary works that would help define the period. Listed here are some of the many titles in the AARL reference collection. #aarl #fulcolibrary #harlemrenaissance #newnegro #resolvetoread #resolvetoresearch #fultonreads #zoranealehurston #nellalarsen #jrfauset

The Auburn Avenue Research Library (AARL) will present a virtual Africana Story Time reading of The Conjure Woman by William Miller, and illustrated by Terea D. Shaffer. A tale of African magic, by the author of Zora Hurston and the Chinaberry Tree. Madame Zina has a strange way about her. She lives alone in a house with no windows. People say she can make the moon burn red and that she can turn the river to salt. But when a child is ill, parents always turn to Madame Zina for help. Africana Virtual Storytime presents the scope and breadth of AARL’s collection of illustrated Africana children’s literature - empowering educators, parents, and caregivers with the resources and skills to share stories of the diasporic Black experience with children.

In collaboration with Georgia State University’s Department of African American Studies, the Auburn Avenue Research Library (AARL) will host author and former University of Alabama and National Football League (NFL) standout running back Touchdown Tony Nathan, who will discuss his powerful memoir Touchdown Tony, Running with Purpose. Nathan will share his coming-of-age journey, from prep school football phenom, living in a racially divide 1970s Birmingham, Alabama, to a famil...y man of purpose and passion seeking to change his community for the better. Tony Nathan was a Parade All-American in high school and went on to play for Paul Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, winning a national championship in 1978. In 1979, he began playing for the Miami Dolphins and played with them until 1987. He was also the starting running back in Super Bowl XVII and Super Bowl XIX. . #aarl #atlanta #takingastand #africanamericanstudies #activism #touchdowntony

Today AARL Honors all those brave men and women who’ve served in our armed forces. Thank you for your service! . Images taken from Selena Sloan Butler Papers, Harold W. Cruse Papers, and the Ray Wilson Photograph Collection. . #aarl #atlanta #veteransday #blackveterans #thankyou #archives

Happening this Thursday! The yearlong national program celebrating African American poetry moves to Chicago for a virtual conversation inspired by the release of African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song, the definitive new Library of America anthology edited by Kevin Young.

Africana Virtual Storytime || From its humble beginnings in America's era of slavery through to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and beyond, it has come to represent the fight for equality and freedom around the world. This important book, lyrically written by Debbie Levy and paired with elegant, collage-style art by Vanessa Brantley-Newton, pays tribute to the heroic spirit of the famous song that encompasses American history. View this event at www.facebook.com/Aubu...rnAvenueResearchLibrary . Fighting For Home Sweet Home || Law Professor, Tanya Washington will present Fighting for Home, Sweet Home. Centered by her own personal fight to protect her Peoplestown home from the misuse of eminent domain laws, Professor Washington will explore the role of race and class at the epicenter of contemporary urban gentrification. Register at https://tinyurl.com/y2ed7sgo . Fat Girls in Black Bodies || Combatting fatphobia and racism to reclaim a space for womxn at the intersection of fat and Black. To be a womxn living in a body at the intersection of fat and Black is to be on the margins. From concern-trolling--"I just want you to be healthy"--to outright attacks, fat Black bodies that fall outside dominant constructs of beauty and wellness are subjected to healthism, racism, and misogynoir. The spaces carved out by third-wave feminism and the fat liberation movement fail at true inclusivity and intersectionality; fat Black womxn need to create their own safe spaces and community, instead of tirelessly laboring to educate and push back against dominant groups. Register at: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/fat-girls-in-black/register . #aarl #atlanta #thisweekataarl #gentrification #ariseatlanta #resolvetoread #resolvetoresearch See more

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In celebration of Gullah Geechee Heritage month, and throughout the month of October, AARL celebrates Gullah Geechee culture, Sea Island/Isles natives, and low country communities with a reading of Glass Bottle Tree, by Evelyn Coleman. Coleman’s story illustrates a Black family living together way out in the country. The pair, African American girl and her grandmother, have such a close relationship that they communicate without words. For access to AARL Africana Storytime, browse our official website or social media.

Dr. Skip Mason Vanishing Black Atlanta Book Club in collaboration with Auburn Avenue Research Library will feature Natasha Trethewey, author of Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir , a chillingly personal and exquisitely wrought memoir of a daughter reckoning with the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather, and the moving, intimate story of a poet coming into her own in the wake of a tragedy. . Request Zoom link- [email protected] . #aarl #bookclub #resolvetoread