The Rochester Public Library has a collection of print and digital materials exploring the lives of people of African descent, according to a newsletter focusing on Black History Month.
The newletter said Understanding Black Experiences was compiled by a diverse team of library staffers and members of the Friends & Foundation of the Rochester Public Library. It includes information on national historical connections, books, films and the arts, and community resources. Visit https://roccitylibrary.org/understanding-black-experiences/.
The library also has a link combining Black history programs and resources at https://ffrpl.libraryweb.org/archived-black-history-and-dei-programs/.
In addition, the newsletter highlighted talks with two Black authors that can be watched on YouTube.
“Exploring Identity, Love, and Being Black in America in Fiction Writing: A Conversation with Award-Winning Author Jason Mott” was streamed a year ago and sponsored by FFRPL. Mott’s first novel, “The Return,” published in 2013, was adapted into the television series “Resurrection.” His fourth novel, “Hell of a Book,” won the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction, the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Prize for Fiction and the Housatonic Book Award for Fiction. He received a 2024 Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Creative Fiction.
Ibram X. Kendi’s 2019 talk, “How to be an Antiracist,” was presented by The Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and sponsored by the Rochester library and FFRPL. The book by that name was a No. 1 New York Times best seller and an international best seller. Kendi, an acclaimed historian and anti-racist scholar, is the founding director of the Howard Institute for Advanced Study and now is a history professor at Howard University. Besides many academic essays, he has written 15 books that won numerous awards. Currently, his Howard biography says, his work includes producing a series of six children’s books adapted from the writings and collected folklore of Zora Neale Hurston.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester Public Library offers extensive Black history resources, author talks
Reporting by Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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