Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, celebrates the freedom of those who had been enslaved in the U.S. The holiday, observed on June 19, commemorates the day that Union army General Granger announced the emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston Texas on June 19, 1865. You can read more about the history of Juneteenth on Wikipedia.To celebrate today, have a look at these books by African Americans, released in 2020.
The city we became / N.K. Jemisin.
Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She’s got six. When a young man crosses the bridge into New York City, something changes. He doesn’t remember who he is, where he’s from, or even his own name. But he can feel the pulse of the city, can see its history, can access its magic. And he’s not the only one. All across the boroughs, strange things are happening. Something is threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
Felix ever after / Kacen Callender.
Felix Love, a transgender seventeen-year-old, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.
A fortune for your disaster / poems by Hanif Abdurraqib.
In his much-anticipated follow-up to The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Abdurraqib has written a book of poems about how one rebuilds oneself after a heartbreak, the kind that renders them a different version of themselves than the one they knew.
Hood feminism : notes from the women that a movement forgot / Mikki Kendall.
A collection of essays taking aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women.
Red at the bone / Jacqueline Woodson.
As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony — a celebration that ultimately never took place.
She came to slay : the life and times of Harriet Tubman / Erica Armstrong Dunbar.
Harriet Tubman is best known as one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. As a leading abolitionist, her bravery and selflessness has inspired generations in the continuing struggle for civil rights. Now, National Book Award nominee Erica Armstrong Dunbar presents a fresh take on this American icon blending traditional biography, illustrations, photos, and engaging sidebars that illuminate the life of Tubman as never before.
