When you’re regularly jet-setting to exciting, new settings, focusing on the career that funds your lifestyle can be a low priority. Being a digital nomad means being able to concentrate and produce quality products from anywhere. When trying to stay productive and focused as a digital nomad, I can share what has helped me.
For the past four months, I’ve joined the 35 million strong digital nomads across the globe. For the bulk of that time, quaint coffee shops in Antigua have served as improvised offices. I’ve taken conference calls from a beachside co-working space in Honduras. Bungalow desks overlooking Mayan jungles in Belize have been my headquarters.
1. GET YOUR MIND RIGHT
It took a while to wrap my head around the concept that, while temporarily living in a UNESCO World Heritage Site, I am not on vacation. I am not a tourist. I’m a woman on an extended business trip. My mindset needed shifting. Yes, I may be steps from an ancient Mayan cultural heritage site. However, I am here to do a job. Once I shifted my mentality, I was better able to stay productive and focused as per usual for all the other (boring) business trips I’ve taken before.
2. SET UP YOUR OFFICE RIGHT AWAY
Before booking a place to stay, I filter my search for places with Wi-Fi. Although not required, I look for places with a dedicated workspace. I also check for the proximity to coffee shops, co-working spaces, libraries, and universities with wi-fi nearby, just in case.
When I touch down in a new place, the first thing I do is check Wi-Fi speeds, service, and the noise level of the area. I unpack my laptop and supplies to get my makeshift “office” set up right away. That way, all I need to do in the morning is sit in the chair and log in. Setting up early provides time to pivot if I need to figure out alternatives.
3. CREATE DAILY ROUTINES
I get it, the point of nomad life is to get away from the ordinary. However, that only applies to your environment. I thrive on structure. When none exists, I create it for myself. The best part of remote life is that I get to determine what makes sense for me instead of trying to conform to other people’s preferences. I’m constantly tweaking the practices that cater to me. Of course, these routines might change based on the atmosphere and the rhythm of the local community.
My morning routine and first 30 minutes at work remain consistent. I’m most productive and focused when I use workflows. My workflow includes tasks that need attention outside of work, too.
Curate structures and experiment with routines until they are perfectly tailored to you.
4. Make Time for Fitness and Food
A well-nourished body is essential to concentration. As part of my routines, I keep a set time for getting outdoors and making sure I eat lunch. Even if my fitness consists of 15-minutes of calisthenics on the hotel balcony, I accomplish it before lunch. It’s easy for me to power through the day without food. By 4 pm I feel starved and beige of chips and banana bread. That’s not the best way to go! Also, be intentional about getting veggies in.
5. Flock to Other Digital Nomads
Honestly, I hated staring at my computer while my new resort buddies went off to enjoy a 4-hour Caribbean reef dive. To avoid feeling left out, find folks who have a similar work-play schedule. Even if your residence has excellent Wi-Fi, now and then, use the local co-working sites — if only for networking. Building a community with groups like Salena Hostel, Remote year, or Noma Collective can help you stay productive and focused as a digital nomad (even when you’re not officially part of the group).
6. Embrace Slow Travel
Ask those who have ever traveled with me — I am known to cram a lot in a day. However, digital nomad life isn’t a vacation —even in a recreation destination. When I’m obligated eight hours a day; leisure mode waits until after 4 pm. That doesn’t yield well for a three-day, mid-week getaway. I’ve found the longer I give myself in a place, the less urgency to do and see things immediately! That takes a lot of pressure off. Give yourself plenty of time to explore a place before jaunting off elsewhere.
When you’re location independent, you exchange traditional office distractions for a new set of challenges. I hope these tips and tricks I’ve shared help you stay productive and focused as a digital nomad. Let me know what works best for you!
Families often have a small window of time when adult offspring have children, and still have active parents. Multi-generational travel is a sweet opportunity to capitalize on memory-making during this floating period. We have so many reasons to love multi-generational travel!
My first international, multi-generational trip was 10 years ago. My family came to visit for two months while I was living in Germany. Well, half of the family just linked up again to explore Guatemala together. There’s a certain magic when a family of Baby-boomers, Millennials, and Gen Zs decides to explore the world together. These are my top five reasons to love multi-generational travel.
Multi-Generational Travel Establishes and Continues Family Traditions & Values
There are certain idiosyncrasies families have. Long before my niece was born, my family established its inside jokes, energy, and styles of communicating. But by the time she came around, I was off, serving with the military. So, she didn’t get to witness how we all interacted with one another. She didn’t know about our road trip sing-a-longs on the way to Grandma’s house. Our two-month-long summer vacation in Germany is where she became one of us. She learned the stories and references that happened before she was born. And now she speaks of them as if she was there when they happened. She was able to contribute to new family inside jokes.
A Babyboomer, a millennial, and a Gen Z go on vacation together…the jokes write themselves and all three generations laugh.
Multi-Generational TravelFeeds Two Birds with One Seed
Three generations traveling together combines my two favorite pastimes —vacation time and family. If you’re going to spend time together anyway, why not do it in an incredible destination?
When everyone is away from the monotony of daily life, the quality of your quality time improves. My family spends most of the time geographically separated. Sure, I can go home to Kentucky to visit my family. However, when we’re in Kentucky, my dad is going to be cutting the grass for a few hours. My mom is going to be in the dining room talking to her house plants. In my childhood bedroom, my nephew will be playing tank war, legos, or videos. Lil’ sis will likely be working. IDK what my niece does — maybe ask people to take her shopping or to her friend’s house.
On vacation, you’re not focused on daily obligations and routines. With all the responsibilities removed, you have time to focus on each other. If you’re going to spend time together, Why not spend it in an idyllic location?
Sure, even when you travel with people in the same generation, you’ll all explore with a unique set of lenses. However, it’s doubtful you’ll rank order your favorite European countries based on the quality of the playground. BTW, according to my 5-year-old niece, Prague has the best playground, thus, the Czech Republic is the best country in Europe.
There were things I forgot we saw, heard, or happened. But, for my five-year-old niece, they were red-letter events. What a child remembers and values from a trip will differ from an adult, but is just as valid.
Like my niece’s favorite German word (Ausfahrt). Or her, seeing the Mona Lisa on a billboard advertisement, “that girl is the Louv-er-ra.” Since she remembered those details, they are part of the collective recollection of the trip.
Make Family MemoriesTogether
As Kay from The Mom Trotter says, it’s ok that your kid might not remember the trip, but you will, and your memories are just as important.
Instead of making travel memories individually and then reiterating the highlights to those who stayed behind, you’re right there, experiencing it together.
The morning we went to Disney Paris, my mom hinted to my niece that we were going to a magical place. My niece scrunched her face trying to figure out what my mom could possibly mean by that. We spent the day standing in lines, watching shows, and screaming from the Tower of Terror! After the close of business firework spectacular, when the droves of guests corralled to the metro, my niece casually reflected on the day. In her sweet, little pre-school voice she said, “I guess this was a magical place after all.”
My mom and I made eye contact with each other as our hearts melted at the tiny, astute observation. To this day, I’m the only one who remembers that moment. But it’s a memory I cherish above all the souvenirs.
Travel Showcases Who You Really are to Your Family Rather Than Telling
I recognize there are varying truths to what I’m about to say but…everyone is the best version of themselves while on vacation. Without the daily stressors and expectations, people can be their relaxed selves. That way, you really get to know your relatives. You get to see a different version of them rather than who you always see. Instead of getting verbal updates on the things each other likes to do, you actually get to witness them in action.
It’s one thing to hear that my niece excels in AP Spanish (as a sophomore…proud tía moment, let me flex). It’s completely different to watch her hold conversations with Guatemalans and hear native speakers compliment her pronunciation.
Sure, I may notice my mom has filled both the living and dining rooms with plants. But understanding her love for plants takes another form when I watch her identify all these species of tropical plants growing in the wild and discuss them with local gardeners.
My mom’s perspective of my living situation changed. For some reason, she had in her mind that I was just sitting around Guatemala all sad and lonely. Even though I told her I’m doing just fine, actually witnessing me exchanging hugs, making coffee plans, and running into friends and neighbors on the streets gave her peace of mind. “Oh… you have friends here,” she said as if she was surprised and relieved (which cracks me up cause this has never been a problem).
Take the Plunge
Multi-generational travel is only available to families for a short while. You don’t have to be a parent to participate! With so many reasons to love multi-generational travel, and such a short window to experience it, I encourage everyone to grasp and cherish this growing travel trend while there’s still time.
If you’ve traveled with 3 or more generations, let me know what you loved about it in the comments.
I am not the one to come to for budgeting advice. Fortunately, I have people in my life who are money gurus. My mom is the family finance babe and is forever updating budgets for me and my sister to follow (with various levels of success).
Fortunately, I’m a little more motivated to budget for travel than I am for everyday life. Travel is one of my main priorities. And since I travel so frequently, I have to be wise about my spending. This plan is intended for those who travel frequently but of course, works for the occasional traveler. This is what works for me and how I budget for a travel lifestyle
1. Set A Goal.
As with any goal, you got to start with the End in Mind or Begin with your WHY. Budgeting for a travel lifestyle is no different. Start by thinking about what you’re saving for. I have two goal-setting methods.
Method 1 Travel Budget Based On Location
Decide on a vacation. Price out all the expenses for that destination. Then save toward that trip. For example. Perhaps you want to go on a Mediterranean cruise. The cruise itself is all-inclusive and costs $2000. The Flight to the port will cost you $400. Airport parking or transportation to the airport will cost about $150. Then you want to save $1,000 for excursions, additional meals on shore, massages & facials, gifts, and other extraneous purchases. Pet sitting or house sitting during the trip may cost $1,000.
This trip will cost you $4,550
Take your time and start saving. Give yourself as long as it takes to reach your goal. The world isn’t going anywhere (for the most part…I mean climate change and political upheaval can certainly put a wrench in travel plans). There’s no need to rush or put yourself in a financial fix or mental health predicament by overextending yourself over a travel budget.
Save your money for an allotted time, then determine where you will go based on how much you have. The key here is to find the best deal based on the money you have. Perhaps you know you want a birthday trip but not sure where you want to go just yet. Or maybe you want to go somewhere for summer vacation or to ring in the New Year. So your travel dates are 4 months out. Start Saving putting away money and as time grows closer (say, six weeks out), decide where you’ll go based on what you can afford.
With $1K USD, you might travel somewhere in the off-season but that’s enough for a solo belle (or beau) to take a nice trip. You might be limited on how far you can go and how long you can stay but, you can go somewhere. With tour agencies, like G adventures, you can take an 8-day trip around Morocco for as little as $800. With a budget of $2,000 so much of the world opens up to you.
Since I travel internationally multiple times per year, I do both Travel Budget Goal-setting methods.
So now that we have two goal-setting methods to budget for travel let’s figure out how to budget for those methods.
2. Assess How Much Money You Have and Where you Are Spending Your Dollars. Pull out all your bills, bank statements, and receipts (even those sent to your email) to track and account for every penny of your past three months. You’re likely to be surprised when you’re not guessing where you spend the most money. See how much money you have to work with after the bills (including your savings) are paid. See where your frivolous spending adds up ($20 shopping sprees at the Dollar Tree buying…random knickknack anyone? No? Only me? Ok.)
3. Reduce Spending. Figure out where you can cut your expenses. Start with subscriptions. Do you really need both an Audible, Book of the Month, and Scribd subscription? Can you cut one of your movie subscriptions?
If you cut a $15 Audible subscription, $12 Prime subscription, $10 Netflix subscription and put that $37 a month directly into a travel sinking fund — You’ll have $444 in a year. That is a plane ticket for most places within your own hemisphere. Or a month’s stay in a hostel.
Search for free entertainment activities. Don’t center your social events around restaurants. Wait a day or two before you impulse buy nonessential items. Cook what you already have in your pantry.
4.Make More money! Side hustles, second job, make it happen. My best job was working after school program for the YMCA. I had so much fun spending my afternoon with little kids. IT didn’t pay much. But those little $200 checks here and there, that I wouldn’t have been getting otherwise, really added up when applied to a travel saving. There are tons of ways to pinch pennies here and there when you’re focused on a goal.
5. Set up a separate fund dedicated specifically for your travels. Shop around for banks with high-yielding accounts and savings programs. Then automatically deposit a recurring set amount each month or with each paycheck. Of course, you’ll want to travel credit card (compare Chase and AmEx) that works for you.
6. Claim Your Travel Lifestyle. Some people have a sports lifestyle. They buy season tickets; they go to away games. They invest in the big screen, surround sound, host game parties, rent the camper for tailgates, have the outfits…the whole 9 yards (10 yards? 50 yards? Idk, I’m not a sports person). And they don’t get married during football season. And maybe spending a lot of time and money going to art galleries and buying sculptures is not their thing.
If travel is your lifestyle, maybe you’ll do less of everything else so you can travel more. Perhaps you’ll have a smaller home (since you’re hardly there anyway). Perhaps you miss exquisite parties that require a new outfit and hair in favor of an extravagant hotel on the cliff. Maybe, instead of spending money on luxuries at home, you hold off until you can do them abroad (nails, hair, and massages are often cheaper in other countries).
7. Do not neglect your long-term savings & rainy day fund. Travel is not an excuse to dip into your future. Your sinking account for travel is not the same account for long-term savings. You never know when a global pandemic (or other semi-natural disasters) might come along and you’ll need your savings to live.
It might not be fast turnaround but little by little you’ll watch your travel budget grow and have a decent-sized travel fund before you know it.
The DFW has an impressive literary scene & I love it. While bookstore hopping I started picking up local stories. Black Like Me, written by a white journalist from a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth, was one of the books.
I first learned of this book back in the day from an episode of Boy Meets World when the boys decide to dress like a woman for an article called “Chick Like Me” after reading Black Like Me in class. It wasn’t until visiting the DFW and having a chat with a local colleague that I learned the author was from Mansfield, Texas.
The author, John Howard Griffin, goes to a dermatologist to get a methoxsalen prescription (a vitiligo medication) and a sun lamp to darken his skin. He spends six weeks at the end of 1959 as a Black man traveling through New Orleans, Hattiesburg, Biloxi, Mobile, Montgomery, Auburn, and Atlanta for research purposes. He also visits Tuskegee, Spellman, and Dillard Universities (when they were still colleges). The submissions were originally articles for a newspaper. The title of this project comes from the final line of Langston Hugh’s Dream Variation “Night coming tenderly, Back like me.”
Last two lines of Dream Variations, “Night coming tenderly, Black like me.
Questions Without Answers
Honestly, I began reading Black Like Me with prejudice & opposition to its development methodology. I started by asking, why?
Why did a white man need to go through such efforts to change his skin tone just so he could understand what it was like to be black in America?
He didn’t need to change his skin color to observe a white shopkeeper’s friendly disposition toward him turn cold and hostile when waiting on a Black person. He could see the “No coloreds” signs and the “Whites Only” signs as a white man. He didn’t have to darken his skin to ask himself how far away the closest Black bathroom was, water fountain, etc.
Additionally, The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man was written in 1912. Nella Larsen wrote Passing in 1929. Richard Wright published Native Son in 1940. James Baldwin’s semi-autobiographical novel, Go Tell It On The Mountain had been available since 1953. We already had stories of World War II heroes surviving Nazis only to be lynched in their service dress through The South. The Montgomery Bus Boycott had triggered a Supreme Court Ruling by several years before this project. The Little Rock Nine made national news when President Eisenhower had to send in federal troops to escort Black kids to school in 1957. Carolyn Bennet already called for Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till’s lynching in 1955…just four years before this little project. That’s a strong indicator of Black Life in America.
Why weren’t these stories enough? Why did a white man want to contribute to this discourse? What did he have to offer that hadn’t been offered by countless Black people for the past three centuries already? Why did he want inclusion?
The author never explained why he felt he needed to leave Texas for this experience. There’s a dearth of Civil Rights narratives coming out of Texas. He missed an opportunity to change that. Instead, he seemed to do what EVERY region outside “the deep south” do — point their fingers and say “See, segregation and discrimination and racism is a Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana thing. We DoN’t HaVe ThOsE pRoBlEmS hErE.”
By the way, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Ft Worth on Oct. 22, 1959 — Two weeks before the “Black Like Me” project began. MLK, Jr. had to stay with a local family because there wasn’t a hotel for Black people in the entire state of Texas. The first Black hotel in Texas opened in Wichita Falls the day after MLK arrived. Black Airmen stationed at Sheppard AFB needed a hotel. But there’s no mention of either of these events in the book. There’s an environment ripe for this project within his region. Was the author oblivious to what was going on in his backyard?
I kept looking for the answers but never got the answers.
The author had questions of his own. “If a white man became a Negro in the Deep South what adjustments would he have to make?”
The author does point out the inability to get authentic answers just by asking or interviewing Black people. As demonstrated in Kathryn Stockett’s, The Help, terrorism scared most Black people into silence. Black people (like W.E.B DuBois & Booker T.Washington) so delicately wrote the accounts of Black life to avoid violent responses. Griffin Observes:
“The Southern Negro will not tell the white man the truth. He long ago learned that if he speaks a truth unpleasing to the white, the white will make life miserable for him.”
(Black Like Me p. 7)
and later:
“They did not know that the Negro long ago learned he must tell them what they want to hear, not what is.”
(Black Like Me p. 123).
I think of the many instances this phenomenon still goes on in communications about race.
Even with the author’s disguise, the authenticity is jeopardized. Namely, because Griffin’s behaviors were not those of an adult man who grew up Black. That was what struck me most when he decided to go hitch-hiking from Mobile to Montgomery. As a Black man. At night. In 1959.
Notable Events in Griffin’s Research
The most WTF moments for me came during a stint while Griffin spent time hitch-hiking through Mississippi and Alabama. White men would not give him a lift during the day because they didn’t want to be seen with him. But at night he never had trouble getting a ride with over a dozen white men.
With all the stories I’ve heard from my family in Alabama, getting in cars, at night, with white men is not one of them. I asked around. This is not something my southern Black friends have heard in their family’s oral histories either. A more common was to travel by jumping on a freight train. My dad and uncles have told stories of this. This was also the case with the famed 1931 Scottsboro Boys.
The crudeness and audacity of the conversations during these car rides revealed a fixation on the sex lives of Black people. The fixation is not completely foreign to the perverted curiosities of today.
One married civic leader with children bragged about r@ping all the Black girls who worked for him. When the author got silent, the politician threatened to kill him and feed him to alligators (a well-known practice). One young driver was bold enough to ask to see the author’s penis. Again, the author went silent. Trying to release the awkward tension, the driver assures the author he wasn’t “going to do anything” to him and adds, “I’m not queer or anything.” As if being straight absolves him from the audacity! He continues, “I’ve just never seen a Negro penis before.” Like, wtf do you need to? How does seeing one impact your life?
Which are the exact two sentences I used a few years ago when a group of white, female Air Force officers defended their entitlement to violate Black women’s bodily autonomy by touching their hair. They used the same, “Well maybe I’ve never touched a Black girl’s hair before.” Like, why do you need to? How is touching a black woman’s hair going to impact your life’s purpose? There are quite a few places I’ve never put my fingers on a white woman, and I am happy to go my entire life without the experience. I suppose not much has changed from 1959 to 2018 regarding bodily entitlement.
The author would have never been privy to the conversations he had while hitch-hiking had he not been in Black skin. However, had he been raised as a Black person, he likely would have never chosen this travel option in the first place.
Black Like Me in Montgomery
The author gives a vague overview of general attitudes in Montgomery but doesn’t give specific reasons why it was his least favorite city. He cites how rude the white church ladies were when they saw him coming out of church. He ends up tapping out of his Black-facade and turning white again for the duration of his Montgomery stay. The privilege to take a break from being Black when being Black for 4 weeks gets overwhelming, triggered major side-eye from me.
I think of my grandmother who survived 30 years as a Black woman in Alabama before relocating to Kentucky for reprieve (consider the hostilities she endured if Kentucky was a reprieve to Alabama). I think of my father who didn’t get to tap out of being Black in Alabama for years as a child. What a freakin’ whimp, I reacted to the author.
Missed Opportunities in Black Like Me
Anyway, the author speaks of the shift from the welcoming embrace he experienced from Black people when they thought he was Black to the hesitancy and coldness he receives from them when he’s returned to whiteness.
He mentions the “hate stares” he gets from Black people when he goes strolling in their neighborhoods as a white man in Montgomery. White men have no reason to go into Black neighborhoods. They don’t have jobs there. They don’t have friends there. They don’t have shops there. I can’t help but conclude that the stares he got were not of hate, but of anxiety. He never acknowledges that his presence brought legitimate threats of violence.
On his hitch-hiking journey from Mobile to Montgomery, the author mentions that he came to expect sexual impropriety from the drivers who picked him up because it happened EVERY SINGLE TIME. This was only a short weekend of experiences for Griffin. After all that he went through as a Black man — to the point that he needed to turn white to get a break from it, the Black people were responding to the same traumas. Except their trauma was a lifetime’s worth. Not a few days.
It is no wonder that a young Black teen on the street would come to expect violence and hostility seeing a white man approach him after a lifetime of violent experiences. But the author doesn’t quite make that connection for readers when he sees the youth brace himself.
Instead, he writes about the way the races regard each other as a two-way street. However, responding to racism is not the same as racism. Responding to violence is not violence. It’s self-defense. It makes me wonder if that understanding escaped the author.
Other Shortcomings of Black Like Me
Let John H. Griffin tell it, life as an African-American in 1959 was nothing but strife, indignity, and navigating around white people. He left Texas looking for racism. I am not suggesting that his instances were not as evident as he wrote them, however, I think we’re also reading evidence of a Baader-Meinhof effect or “the yellow car phenomenon.” When you are looking for a yellow car you notice them more. When people become aware of something, they see it more frequently. He left Texas looking for racism and that is what he found. He went out of his way to put himself in situations to find it.
Clifton Taulbert published his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored in 1989. That book takes place in Mississippi during the same time Griffin was doing his journalism project. In his memoir, Taulbert showcases that even during perilous times, Black people experienced so much love within their tight-knit community. This community was lacking in Griffin’s research. He experienced some kindness when Black strangers welcomed him into their homes. But Griffin did not expand on this warmth and community in the way Taulbert did. Griffin didn’t even consider building community or focusing on the community of Black people in the different locations. His focus was on racism and he dubbed that focus “Negro Life.” There’s a lot more to being Black in America than the racist responses to Blackness. In fact, if he had community, he would never have been in some of those situations.
The Author’s Notable Observations
While I do think Griffin misses opportunities to bridge the gap of noticeable insights, he does highlight the threat of violence that was present for everyone in the Jim Crow South. The threat of white supremacist violence controlled the behavior of white people as well.
In his epilogue he explains, “Any white man who advocated justice in those days could be ruined by his white neighbors … Certainly, many who had a sense of justice did not dare show it for fear of reprisals. So no one was free…Heaped on top of the economic reprisals and the dangers of physical reprisal were perhaps the most damaging reprisal of all – the deliberate character assassination.”
(Black Like Me p. 164).
I did wonder if, while waxing philosophically in his reflections about the environment dictating the habits of people rather than racial pathology, he actually said these things to the white people in his audience at the time. Or did he acquiesce and allow their ignorance to continue?
Photographs from the John Griffins second tour of NOLA
Conclusions
As predicted, Griffin’s white neighbors responded to his newspaper column with death threats and lynching effigies. A mob of white men beat him and left him for dead after publication. It took Griffin five months to recover from the assault. His parents, wife, and kids fled to Mexico due to the violence.
What I haven’t read is how Black people received this work. I’m more interested in what Griffin’s Black contemporaries thought of his work. I’m curious to know Malcolm X’s thoughts on this project. Malcolm was an avid book nerd who was about 35-years-old at the time of publication. I wonder what Black college students thought about the work (which might not be too difficult to find by poking around the newspaper archives of HBCUs…will revisit this inquiry later). According to Smithsonian Magazine, Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture) said, “is an excellent book—for whites.’ Griffin agreed; he eventually curtailed his lecturing on the book, finding it “absurd for a white man to presume to speak for black people when they have superlative voices of their own.” This is why I wonder why it took so long for him to figure this out.
I can’t say I’m super impressed. I don’t think it added anything unique to the Civil Rights/ Jim Crow narratives. Again, Black people already said everything he said. Overall, Black Like Me is an important read to spark conversations. I don’t think teachers without the intellectual range should touch this book, although I think it could be an insightful educational tool if done right.
When I look back at all the disappointments, annoyances, and struggles of 2020, I have to recognize it worked wonders for my bookshelf. All the chaos and social distance made for an outstanding reading year. I decided to do a 2020 Year-end Reading Round-Up to inspire your reading in the new year.
This year, I read about 16 books. That’s a little low for bookstagramers and book bloggers but blows my previous years out of the water. I picked up my first book right around St. Patrick’s day when I realized how few Irish authors I’ve read. Then the country shut down. Then racial, civil turmoil hit a boiling point and chased me to write into the literary embrace of James Baldwin. My favorite writers of the year are Brit Bennet, Elizabeth Acevedo, and James Baldwin, who wrote their tails off and gave us something phenomenal to stick with us.
With no further ado, here’s my GloBelle Affairs recommended reading List for 2020.
I decided to do a 2020 Year-end Reading Round-Up to inspire your reading in the new year.
Dubliners
This is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my roommate was reading the same book in Spanish. All the stories take place around Dublin and have a kind of melancholy, hopelessness to them. Joyce wrote the book leading up to the 1919 War of Independence. Two years after Joyce wrote the collection of stories, the Irish launched an uprising against British Rule. The stories reflect the Irish nationalism and limitations Irish people felt their lives had at the time.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
This1988 novel provided the burst of optimism I needed after reading the Dubliners. It’s not particularly a work of literature with a magical use of words and literary devices. It is, however, more encouraging and light-hearted. Santiago wants more for his life than watching sheep and starts having dreams telling him to go to Egypt.
Everything starts pointing him toward Egypt, so he just does it. He sells his flock (aka all his wealth and security) and leaves Spain for Egypt. Like an alchemist, the journey, like all travel, is transformative. The book encourages everyone to just do it. Seek your calling. I needed to hear this story in 2020—a world’s bestseller.
The Fire Next Time
The thoughts that flow through James Baldwin’s mind are incredible to witness. This book gives us so many discussion-provoking gems that you can sit at a coffee shop with your most intellectual friends to debate or discuss. Most notable is the opening essay, a letter to his nephew, in which he discusses survival in America. In the letter, he summarizes the bottom-line of survival in America, “You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger.”
So long as you don’t adopt the white perspective, you can survive. Maintain the “Double-Consciousness” that W.E.B. Du Bois coins. He also urges survival, “And now you must survive because we love you, and for the sake of your children and your children’s children.”
Baldwin also describes what it is like to be a black military service member in America on page 53, which still remains relevant in 2020. He discusses religion – both Islam and Christianity – which replicates some of the same conversations that Frederick Douglas in the 19th century and what Americans are still talking about in the 2020s.
Some books are best read in pairs.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
I started reading this to find quotes to challenge this new P.R. attempt to cast or re-brand the character, Uncle Tom, as a hero and the term “Uncle Tom” as a compliment. He wasn’t, and it isn’t. When I read this book, what ended up happening was being reminded how little things had changed in America since Beecher Stowe published the epic in 1852. I found myself nodding and thinking, “I’ve experienced this. Oh, this is just like the passage from James Baldwin’s Fire Next Time written a century and a decade later. I’ve seen this happen, and I’ve heard Kentuckians have this exact, ironic conversation concerning their faith in God and the lives of black people in 2020.” It’s still relevant. Get the audiobook if reading 500 pages is too overwhelming.
The Fire This Time
In 1963, James Baldwin wrote, “God gave Noah the Rainbow sign, no more water – fire next time.” Baldwin hinted at a sign of promise for America in 1963, but he warned about the fire that would come to America if the nation did not take heed. In 2020, America is in the fire this time. Inspired by James Baldwin, The Fire This Time was released in 2017 as a collection of essays and poems from multiple black perspectives.
In one essay, Garnette Cadogan discusses the differences between walking while black in Kingston, New Orleans, and New York City and the double consciousness black people must employ while living in America. In his native Kingston, walking as a form of therapy to clear his mind, get exercise, and sunshine. But when he moves to America, walking…with his skin color… walking becomes fraught with dangers. “I recognized that the way I would treat dangerous people when I was growing up in Jamaica was the way people began treating me,” he says. It is a reminder of how simple, everyday actions like walking are shaped by a white person’s perception of one’s blackness. Exercise should not be a death risk, but, as we all know, in 2020, it is. And it’s relatable. All the essays are relatable.
All About Love
One of my favorite media gurus is a YouTube channel called For Harriett, and the creator, Kim, had a “Read More Bell Hooks” campaign. So, amid the chaos that was the Summer of 2020, I picked up her “All about Love Book.” Bell Hooks is an African-American Stanford Alum who hails from Western Kentucky and is a leading voice in Black feminist thought. Since we share some of the same identities, I was already interested in what she has to say.
Hooks starts by discussing how everyone thinks they know love. Based on the teachings of love in our American society, most of us have no idea. We have a lot of unlearning to do. The book’s motivation was that America moved so far from love that it may never find it again. American society just doesn’t model the best definition of love. America’s foundation is characterized by violence, hate, and lack of respect. Each generation continued to hand down those teachings. Love is an action, never a feeling. It is not centered on romance and sexual attraction. Love starts on a strong foundation of respect. Key quotes that I found best captures the author’s thesis:
“An overwhelming majority of us come from dysfunctional families in which we were taught we were not okay, where we were shamed, verbally and/or physically abused, and emotionally neglected even as (we) were taught to believe that we were loved.”
“When we love children, we acknowledge by our every action that they are not property, that they have rights – that we respect and uphold their rights.”
“As one man bragged about the aggressive beatings he had received from his mother, sharing that ‘they had been good for him,’ I interrupted and suggested that he might not be the misogynist woman-hater he is today had he not been so brutally beaten by a woman as a child.”
ABUSE is NOT LOVE!!
I think this is a must-read for people who want to learn to love their children, partners, friends, and humankind, in general, better. The book is also beneficial in helping audiences recognize the often blurry difference between love or abuse. That way audiences can put up healthy boundaries.
Clap When You Land
This was my favorite book of 2020. Elizabeth Acevedo knocked Louisa May Alcott off her throne and became my favorite author after this book. By page 12, I was ugly crying. I continued crying until the very end when I was still crying but cheering on women’s strength when they unit.
In November of 2001, there was a plane crash that most Americans vaguely remember. Some 200 people from the sky and five on the ground, headed to the Dominican Republic died. Once investigators confirmed that it wasn’t another terrorist attack like the one in September, it faded out of memory. But American Airlines flight 587 rocked the New York Dominican community. Everyone within the New York DR community knew someone personally affected by this tragedy. The author, a poet by trade and part of that community, imagined this story and wrote this prose- in-verse fiction about what could have been. Oh, and there are mentions of LGBTQ experiences. People like knowing that ahead of time for whatever reason. It’s not a big part of the book.
This book had beautiful depictions of Caribbean culture, New York Dominican culture, African- Diaspora culture, delicious food, class strife, themes of secrets, forgiveness, family, belonging, and using chess as the symbolism of life and family. I look forward to this story being picked up and turned into a movie. It was so good!
I heard Acevedo perform her poem, “Hair” years ago. I didn’t realize she was the same author I’d fallen in love with until I did some post-novel author exploration. Based on our shared relationship to hair politics and her uncanny way to express it, I already loved Elizabeth Azevedo’s expression before I picked up her novel. To learn more about why Ms. Acevedo appears twice on this Year-End Reading Round-up, check out her talk at Summit on Inequality and Opportunity.
Clap When You Land is hands-down, the best thing I read all year.
Lead from The Outside Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change
Stacy Abrams distinguished herself as the Bellethe 2020 election.She turned Georgia Blue and predicted that Georgia was a swing state several years ago. After the election, I realized that I had never read a single leadership book by a black woman. This is astounding considering all of the formal military leadership education I’ve had. All the leaderships by white men were informative but never took racism or sexism into consideration as obstacles to navigate. Even white women’s leadership books (i.e., Lean In) were tone-deaf to the idea that not all people would get the same results doing the prescribed methods based on how they look. Ms. Abrams addresses those obstacles and how to use them as pathways rather than stumbling blocks. This is a book I’ll continue to reference. I read this for Non-fiction November and think
Leaning leadership lessons from leaders with the same leadership challenges as you is a win!
The Vanishing Half
My Junior League’s book club featured this book to read and discuss in Decemeber. After slavery, this mullato guy built a society for beige-colored mullatos on his daddy’s plantation. For generations, no one married or procreated with dark-skinned people. The story tells the divergent lives of twin sisters. They vanish from town. One passes into white society and lives a privileged life. The other twin returns to the hometown with a very dark child. This child is so dark no one in the beige village has ever seen such a person, and her presence creates a spectacle.
With all else being the same, the proximity to whiteness that the twins chose during Jim crow is used to represent privilege, inter-generational trauma, and intersectional identities. The dynamics of the LGBTQ community layered with bi-racial identities come into play as well as, yet again, the double consciousness between how a person identifies oneself and how that person is identified by society.
The author knows how to weave magic out of words. I found myself captivated all the way through. . Her use of literary devices to set scenes is phenomenal. This is one of the best reads of the year and sets a gold bar for writing. This was a fascinating read that will make a great movie.
This novel will make a great film. A highly discussed novel for any 2020 end of year reading round up.
To Build a Better World
After the election and discussions of American Democracy being threatened by the media spin doctor and fear-mongers, I decided to buy this book. That’s when I realized how non-diverse the leadership and International Affairs section of my personal library was. I also wanted more academic substance to determine if American democracy was at peril. I didn’t get that out of this book by leading scholar-diplomats, Condeleeza Rice and Philip Zelikow. The pair focuses their framework centering Germany and the Soviet Union during the Cold War with a lot of historical analysis but minimal modern reflection (the book was initially published in Sept 2019). It speaks of our divided world in the late 1980s but not much on how divided international politics are now. Overall, it’s a good read, just not what I was hunting for at the moment. It’s graduate-level, international affairs required reading worthy.
I wondered why this wasn’t part of my International Studies Cannon, but it wasn’t written while I was in grad school. It’s a worthy read for all future IR/GA/Policy students.
Democracy
by Condoleezza Rice- Optimistic stance that authoritarian regimes are not more potent than the natural human desire for freedom. She touches on historical examples of fights for democratic principles across the globe. Using her experience as a diplomat and the 66th Sec State, she references the democratic struggles of Russia, Columbia, Kenya, Ukraine, and countries in South West Asia, as well as her experiences growing up in Birmingham during Jim Crow. She even discusses potential outcomes of competing interests and ideas of freedom clash. One can argue that the structures of democracy and the “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” that cause democracies to crumble have been shaken since Rice published this text. I wonder if she maintains her position that considering democracy threatened is alarmist and premature. This text should be part of the Global Affairs/ National Security Studies cannon.
Multiple perspective on democracy need make their way on graduate school reading lists. These books were not planned, but due to current events made their way on the end of year reading round up.
The Poet X
After reading Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land, I became obsessed and had to read everything I could by the author. This book comes off as auto-biographical and coming of age. It’s about an Afro-Latino spoken-word poet from Harlem. Some of the themes are sexuality, religion, adjusting to developing bodies. The stories through poems discuss the challenges little girls transforming into womanhood have while navigating this gross society we’ve built for them and the well-intended, poorly executed ways parents call themselves protecting these children. As I said, I stan for Elizabeth Acevedo, so I loved this work.
Key Quotes: “I am the baby fat that settled into D-cups and swinging hips so that the boys who called me a whale in middle school now ask me to send them pictures of myself in a thong.”
“Just because your father’s present, doesn’t mean he isn’t absent.”
“When your body takes up more room than your voice, you are always the target of well-aimed rumors.”
Check Elizabeth’s phenomenal spoken word poem, “Rat Ode” that she dedicated to a professor who told her rats were not noble enough for a poem.
The Black Kids
This Young Adult fiction by Christina Hammonds Reed captures the 1992 Rodney King Riots in L.A. through the eyes of a wealthy black girl named Ashley. As in so many of the books I’ve read this year, this book explores themes of identity and double consciousness. Ashley realizes her community no longer sees her as “one of the girls,” but as “one of the black kids.” That comes with a whole host of implications. No matter the best attempts made by black parents to protect their children from the inescapable trauma that stems from systemic racism, eventually, some event is bound to happen to knock the rose-colored glasses off. There’s a lot I can relate to in this book. It even has a character with my sister’s name – something I’ve never seen in literature considered classics in academia.
“We have to walk around being perfect all the time just to be seen as human. Don’t you ever get tired of being a symbol? Don’t you ever just want to be human?”
The moment a black person in America gets categorized or documented as flawed is the moment abuse and even death becomes justified. And that expectation of perfection is the level of pressure and anxiety black Americans live with daily. That’s what the young protagonist realizes in this book.
My to-Be Red Next Boot Bookstack. Some didn’t make the End of Year Reading round up for 2020 but will definitely be there for 2021.
A Promised Land
The most anticipated release of the year (and pretty pricy) President Obama’s memoir takes 600 pages to cover his presidency up to Bin Laden’s Execution. I have not completed this work. But it needs to be on your bookshelf. I must brag, I got mine for $23 at T.J. Max. I think there was a fold in the book jacket that made it unfit to sell full price. I have to brag on that deal because it’s selling for $30+ at other major retailers.
The most awaited memoire of the past 4 year should be on everyone’s end of year reading round up for 2020.
Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul
Written by Princeton professor, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., is the harsh critique of American Democracy I was somewhat hoping for, but knowing otherwise, when I read the perspectives of Condoleezza Rice. The main idea of the book centers around the “value gap” that is so interwoven in our ‘democratic’ system, as well as the ‘racial habits’ that America does to sustain this gap. It discusses the state-sanctioned terror on Black Americans while providing systemic, unearned value to white Americans. It suggests Black Americans aren’t actually experiencing democracy – at least not in the same way white Americans are. The value gap informs all decisions and actions, including academic major, schools, career-fields, the concept of justice, housing, and policy. The author pinpoints the black political classes as “accomplices in the demise of black America. To the author, it’s the same ol’ democracy, just in black.
I think the professor’s intended primary audience is the politically educated, black academic class. The average reader would need some pre-requisites on history taught from the black perspective, which doesn’t gloss over or whitewash historical events before grasping some concepts or buying off on them. The book takes for granted readers have a baseline understanding.
Multiple perspective on democracy need make their way on graduate school reading lists.
Mexican Gothic
Not my typical genre. It’s mystery, horror, and suspense set in 1950s Mexico. I can’t say I connected or identified with it in the same way I did other books. I have a lot of questions about most of the creative choices the author made. Mostly, during a time of pandemic and thwarted travel, I just didn’t get enough of a sense of place and setting that I was craving. But the cover is stunning, and I get to fit in with all the book nerdy cool kids ’cause this was the most anticipated book drops of the year and on all the influencer’s nightstands. Perhaps it will make a better movie. I just wasn’t moved. Maybe I’ll try to reread it. Idk.
If we’re judging books by the cover, the cover was all this book had going for it.
I think what made me love this reading list was that I found so much of me reflected in the pages. My 2020 reading experience spoke to my experiences in a way that Dickens and Hemmingway never could. That’s why I found them all so engrossing. I haven’t really found the words to describe the novelty of seeing myself written in novels for the first time. Perhaps that word doesn’t exist in English yet.
Alright! That’s all I have. That’s my Year-End Reading Round-up. What books would you recommend? Let me know in the comments or on my Insta (@globelleaffairs) so I can start my 2021 based on your recommendations.
Like many Bostonians, I took advantage of the February break to defrost in warm, sunny Miami, Florida. I decided to go last minute and booked my first time in Miami a week in advance. When last-minute trips happen, I’m so grateful for the city guides of other travelers. It saves so much time. I started planning using Lee Tumbe’s 24 Hours in Miami as a guide, then tweaked to personalize. This extended weekend getaway in Miami on a budget guide accompanies Lee’s. I usually budget about $1K for a trip. I went a bit over due to last-minute planning this time. You can take my plans and tweak to your liking. Here’s my Miami weekend getaway budget breakdown.
Transportation (Flight + On-ground) = $673.91
Flight booked 5 days in advance $388.60 + optional Mileage booster ($40.31) + In-flight Wi-fi both ways ($20) + In-flight Dinner + Starbucks ($16) = $ 464.91.
I could have saved almost $80 by skipping the extras and packing my own meal to eat on the flight. I probably could have saved on the flight by booking well in advance. Roundtrips to Miami from Boston are often for under $200. Of course, these tickets are usually in the summer and summer isn’t exactly a preferred time to travel to Miami. I used Lyft from home pick up to airport, around Miami, and back home $212 (with change rounded up as a charity donation to the USO). It could have been made cheaper by not traveling back and forth from Miami Beach to Miami on several occasions (would have kept $45). If I had a friend to drop off and pick up at the airport, I could have reallocated $72. Or if I had traveled with a friend to split the costs. Oh well, so much for social currency. However, using Lyft as opposed to driving and parking at Logan International Airport ($95), renting a vehicle from Enterprise Rent-a-Car ($123 + fuel) and paying for hotel parking ($45 a night x 3 nights +tip & tax = $140) saved at least $146. I did, however, end up getting chauffeured around for free (my social currency has a better exchange rate in Miami than it does in Boston).
For the purpose of travel blogging, I stayed at three different types of hotels at various price points. I also booked my hotels 17 hours before I got on the plane, on a major event (PRIDE) weekend, so I limited my options. None of the locations I chose had availability for the whole weekend, so la carte lodging was required. Had I stayed at the Generator Hostel the entire weekend I would have only spent $207. If I stayed at the Trade Winds Apartments the whole time, I could have tucked away $132.20. Had I booked The Confidante in advance, I could have stayed all weekend for the price that I paid moving from hotel to hotel. I also reserved my room through booking.com because the third-party site offered better rates than the hotel site. However, in hindsight, I might have been able to snag a better deal using my Hyatt membership, military discount, and collected the points I forfeited by using the third-party booking site. It’s also important to note, that all hotels and hostels have a resort tax that isn’t included in the advertised online price.
Generator $69 (includes $10 resort fee) trendy place for solo travelers to mix and mingle. My number one pick for a weekend getaway in Miami on a budget Trade Winds Apartment Hotel $172 (includes $22.80 resort fee) Great for families who’d rather cook than eat out or people who want more space to feel more at home. The Confidante $397.66 (includes $34 resort fee) Perfect for a beacation, group trip, or party weekend location. It’s a splurge if you’re staying alone but worth it if you’re splitting the cost.
A Luxury Hostel seems like an oxymoron, but at the Generator Miami, they make it work.
Food $219.37
Friday Arrived in time for a late dinner. Dinner was at no cost to me (using the social currency here).
Saturday Generator breakfast $23.05 I Could have gotten a 20% discount using a special offer code from the Generator Ap but I got distracted by tattooed biceps and a sweet smile.
Voodoo Lounge Lunch (ceviche & margarita) $37.41 Sangria at Cubacho Art and Performing Arts Center $13 Paul Bakery Miami (two bottles of water) $6.50 Dinner at Giordano in South Beach Strip $50.19 Azucar Icecream $4.82
Sunday Confidante Brunch $50 I was so tired I fell asleep through dinner and ate snacks when I woke up middle of the night.
Monday Brunch at Dreamer Matcha Café $34.40 before catching a flight back home. *In-flight dinner included in flight transportation expenses. **
I could have skipped Dreamer Café. Not only was it out of the way, costing me a lyft fee just to travel to it, but the food was also overpriced café food. And I knew it was going to be expensive before I went and I did it anyway for the Instagramable flamingo picture. Was $34.40 plus my lyft ride worth it? Nah.
I also didn’t take advantage of my hotel’s happy hour with free drinks when I stayed at Trade Winds. I did have meals, snacks, shots, and drinks paid for by gracious vacationers (male & female) that I met on the way. Restaurants in Miami Beach automatically collect a built-in gratuity. Of course, eating on the main strip of SoBe (South Beach as the locals call it) is going to have jacked-up prices, and that’s where I consumed three meals. There’s a couple of approaches that I think I could have cut this price down by 25%. Utilizing Restaurant.com,miamionthecheap.com, travelzoo.com, groupon.com, livingsocial.com and researching Miami’s best happy hours, food trucks, grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and cheapest restaurants, I think I could have eaten on $40 a day instead of $40 a meal.
Entertainment $10
Pictures with parrots in Little Havana $10 Vizcaya Museum and Gardens (Free for military members)* Frost Science Museum (Free for military members)* Pérez Art Museum Miami (Free for military members)* Domino Park (Free for all) Clubbing at Voodoo Lounge (Free for all, free drinks for me)** Wynwood Walls (Free for all) Miami Botanical Garden (Free for all) The Beach (Free for all) Hookah (Free for me)** *Military ID cards come in handy **Military camaraderie even when you don’t know each other comes in handy
The entertainment for a weekend getaway in Miami on a budget could be as simple as beach lounging and people-watching. Pride weekend also brought tons of entertainment to the beach. I just opted to go to museums and explore. And frankly, I probably would have been disappointed had I paid normal price for some of these locations.
You definitely want to visit Vizcaya Museum and Gardens early for the best light for photographs and before too many visitors photo bomb your shots. Plus, it’s super hot mid-day and the outdoor gardens are the main event.
Extraneous travel-related Expenses $240.39
These expenses included: Dog Lodging for my pup back at home $189, Mani/Pedi in little Havana $30, I lost my beach hat, got a new one $21.39, Snacks & water from Walgreen’s $20
So, in total, a 4-day weekend to Miami ended up costing me $1,781.94 which could be a little steep for a long weekend. However, with more advanced planning, I could have reduced at least $100 in flight costs. Staying at The Generator all three nights would have saved me $451.66. Plotting a more efficient ground transportation root (including avoiding inadvertently going to a museum after it closed) would have reduced my transportation expenses $25 bringing that total down to $1082.56 which is more manageable. I’m sure I could have found other ways to shave even more dollars off. Finding cheaper restaurants off the tourist path and using the kindness of friends could have reduced costs. In all, for me, a grand for a weekend in Miami was well worth the change of scenery.
Be sure to check back for the next post that tells the stories of my adventures of culture, history, friends, and flirting in Miami Beach.
Let me know if you’ve found other ways to save on trips to Miami!
When doing any type of travel, having a history and cultural context about the place you’re visiting ahead of time enriches the experience. So I curated a list of 22 books to accompany any trips out in the American West. These books were selected because they provide diverse perspectives, a comprehensive overview, and an introduction to the uniquely American way of life. They cover all age groups and reading levels. Let me know what you think and if you have any reading suggestions that you think should be on this list.
Although black cowboys are often missing from the prevailing narrative, black men made up as much as 25 percent of cowboys of the Old West. The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses—men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the black cowboys who made up one-fourth of the wranglers and rodeo riders. This book tells their story.
If one out of every four cowboys of the Old West were Black, why aren’t they part of the cowboy narrative? This history book provides context to the history that is often overlooked.
The
brave pioneers who made a life on the frontier were not only male—and they were
not only white. The story of African-American Women in the Old West is one that
has largely gone untold until now. The author reconstructs the stories of ten
African-American women from historical documents found in century-old archives.
They were laundresses, freedom advocates, journalists, educators, midwives,
business proprietors, religious converts, philanthropists, mail and freight
haulers, and civil and social activists.
Professor
Emeritus at California State University at East Bay, tells the story of black
men and women of the old west. These cowboys include drivers, foremen,
fiddlers, cowpunchers, cattle rustlers, cooks, singers, wranglers, riders,
ropers, bulldoggers, and bronc busters. They came from varied backgrounds.
A
historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white
settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest
Comanche chief of them all.
A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurty’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.
The
national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of
John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of
Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for
himself. With two companions, he sets
off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where
dreams are paid for in blood. Winner of
the National Book Award for Fiction.
A New York
Times Notable Book of the Year by a New York Times Bestselling novelist.
“Lasso the Wind is like a good road trip across the West. You drive, you
stop to camp, you fall in love, and then you decide to stay. Egan’s words are
helping to settle the political chaos of this changing landscape. Alongside his
sharp eye for details and clarity of mind is an ethical spine that is helping
to shape the new West. I’m so glad he’s here.” –Terry Tempest Williams
Photo courtesy of Paintbrush Adventures in Absarokee, MT. Yes, the place really is this beautiful and one of my all time favorite American adventures.
Narbona could not have known that “The Army of the
West,” during the longest march in American military history, was merely the
vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as
“Manifest Destiny.” For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath
of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of
soldiers and settlers who wished to change their old way of life or destroy
them.
ritten
in 1958, the author’s condescending sexism, racism, and superficiality are
nonchalantly reflected. The author rarely references primary source writings of
women, but more commonly newspapers or the recollections of men. He spends
considerable time documenting ondescending remarks about women’s clothing and the
author can’t seem to write enough about prostitutes. The title is misleading in that it excludes
all women with the exception of white women. This book is included on this list
as a contrast between the other diverse works and this perspective which is the
most prevailing of cowboy life in the old west.
When orphans Aiden and Maddy Lynch first meet trail rider,
Jefferson J. Jackson, in the spring of 1865, they’re struggling to survive on
their family’s drought-ravaged Kansas farm. So when Jackson offers an escape –
a 2000-mile journey across the roughest country in the world – Aiden knows it’s
their only choice.
Set in modern-day Montana, captures the essence of the
west with wide open spaces from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old
experiencing his last summer of childhood without his mother. A 2009 Best Book for Young Adults.
This is a six book series of the triumphs and struggles
of a nine-year-old Swedish immigrant to America who moves to the Minnesota
territory in 1854 and starts her new life in America as a pioneer in the
plains. It touches on historical topics like manifest destiny in addition to
timeless lessons of American girlhood like friendships, family, and growing up.
The true sweat-and-dirt tale of the feisty
cowboy-child who became the most famous black rodeo performer who ever lived.
The picture book includes a note about the history of the black West and a
bibliography. Supplement this reading by
following it with a video of the real Bill Pickett in action from the 1922
silent film, The
Bull Dogger.
Bill Pickett is the most well-known of Black American Cowboys. This children’s book tells some of his adventures.
Charro is the Mexican term
for “horseman.” However, a charro is much more than a cowboy. More
than showing their horsemanship charros show off their pride for their
country–because to be a charro is to be a Mexican. Female charro competitions are called
escaramuzas. You can start exploring their elegant yet fierce horsemanship on
this Youtube
video.
The tale of the
Southwestern cousins of the Three Little Pigs and their troubles with the Big
Bad Coyote. It also comes in a Spanish version. You can observe it read
out loud here on YouTube.
The western, lady cousins of the Three Little Pigs have Big Bad Coyote troubles of their own.
Black Frontiers chronicles
the life and times of black men and women who settled the West from 1865 to the
early 1900s. In this fascinating book, you’ll meet many of these brave
individuals face-to-face, through rare vintage photographs and a fascinating
account of their real-life history. You
can hear the book read
out loud here on YouTube.
Although this rhyming alphabet book targets younger
learners, it does provide useful vocabulary and detailed informational
paragraphs on Western history. It’s versatile and informative across all age
groups. Read along with the YouTube
Video.
No study of the American cowboy is complete without being intimately familiar with the legendary epitome of cowboys, Pecos Bill. You’ll find no shortage of children’s picture books on this epic American Tall Tale hero. You can watch Walt Disney’s Merrie Melodies version on YouTube. Let his tall tale segue into a complete study of tall tales, an classically American storytelling art form.
“Rose was the first child born free and easy to Jackson and Millicent MacGruder. I recall most vividly the night she came into this world. Hailing rain, flashing lightning, and booming thunder pounded the door, inviting themselves in for the blessed event.” Cowgirl Rose grows up to be a force to be reckened with.
In American Tall Tale fashion, this children’s book tells the story of a little cowgirl named Rose, who is a force of nature.
In addition to travel, consider pairing this study of the American West with culinary exploration and movies. Don’t forget to let me know if you have any other book suggestions in the comments!
One of the most magnetic people I know established my new favorite non-profit aimed at exposing a wider range of children to the thrills of aviation. Legacy Flight Academy accomplishes this goal at one-day, Eyes Above the Horizon events that take place in various cities around the county. Students interact with diverse pilots who instill the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen and share tales of their flying adventures. The highlight of the day is an introductory flight in the cockpit of a single-engine plane. All of this is provided free of charge to anyone who takes advantage of the opportunity. I’d heard so much about this award-winning organization that I had to get involved. So I boarded a plane to fly to Houston to volunteer.
Legacy Flight Academy: Eyes Above The Horizon
Early on a Saturday morning children start filtering through the Lone Star Flight
Museum. I’m charged with leading a group of 20 or so 5th and 6th graders to their stations. The day
is divided into four parts: introductory flight, Tuskegee Airmen legacy lesson,
museum scavenger hunt, and hands-on simulation. Inquisitive, little minds absorb
all the information and start making connections with context they’ve been
provided. When they ascend into the sky,
a transformation takes place. Packed
full of new experiences, their little bodies come back down to Earth, but their
perspective never does. I have the privilege of watching it all take place
from a front row view.
All smiles while 5th-grade children take turns checking out a fighter jet as they wait for their introductory flight.
While shepherding the children through the galleries on a scavenger hunt, something becomes apparent for the first time. Of all the exhibits on aviation, Bessie Colman was the only black female aviator featured…in the entire, huge museum! Granted it’s a Texas-heritage aviation museum and Ms. Colman was a native Texan, surrounded by all the aviation history gives the appearance that Bessie Coleman was one of a kind. She wasn’t. The stories of Mildred Hammons Carter, Willa Brown, and Janet Bragg are equally fascinating, especially for their time. They taught countless other black men and women to fly. Even with my background in history, spending my life in the Air Force, and teaching Air Force History, I had not been fully cognizant of the dearth of aviators that look like me until this moment.
Precocious children stay engaged with a Legacy Lesson of the Tuskegee Airman from a volunteer who was personally friends with a recently passed original Airman. They asked so many thoughtful questions and offered their own insights.
We laud the Tuskegee Airmen as the nation’s first military unit for African-American pilots. However, it wasn’t for all African-American pilots; just the male ones. Words matter, and so do the omission of words. When we leave out the word “male,” although perhaps implied, it glosses over the lack of opportunity for black women. Not explicitly stating the U.S. Army’s Tuskegee Flight School Experiment solely selected black men alters the context from a sense of inclusion for all black people to the reality of the exclusion of over half the black population.
While it is also essential to recognize that the U.S. military barred women in general from combat, and thus fighter pilot slots, during World War II, it’s also crucial to make abundantly clear, that black, female pilots, although qualified for non-combat flights, faced both gender and racial discrimination. Even today, unless you specifically hunt for the contributions of black, female aviators, you won’t find them mentioned in movies or websites including Tuskegee University’s own. Even the supporting contributions women provided, to include training the Tuskegee Airmen to fly, are omitted.
Herb and Mildred Carter’s 70-year, epic romance in the sky is one for the history books. They weren’t allowed to date while training at Tuskegee so they’d meet up in the sky above Lake Martin and blow kisses at each other from their planes. Mildred was the first black woman in Alabama to fly and first civilian hired by the Army Air Corp. She was retroactively designated a WASP 70 years after applying. As far as my research takes me, she is the only person who is designated as both a WASP and Tuskegee Airman.
The same is true for the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). It wasn’t an inclusive program for all women. It specifically disqualified black women. So it wasn’t a Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. It more accurately should be called the “White Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps” with a few waivers for non-black Women of Color.
I’d always identified with both groups of ground-breaking pioneers, only to realize that I wouldn’t have been welcomed in either. We are still witnessing the early years of black female aviation. The first black woman to fly in combat was in 2001! That’s 60 years after the Tuskegee Airmen and WASP! Recognizing neither group would have had a place for me to fly was depleting as well as telling.
After 8 hours of flight immersion, Legacy Flight Academy participants gather for a group picture.
After the all-day event wrapped up, a pilot for United Airlines
invited the Legacy Flight Academy volunteers to crash at her sprawling secondary
home. Fewer than 150 African-American women hold
a pilot’s license (airline, commercial, military or instructor); she’s one of
them. She’s also a founding member of Sisters of the Skies, a non-profit organization founded in 2015. This organization doesn’t just accept black
women as members, Sisters of the Skies is dedicated to increasing the number of
black female aviators. The friend who
invited me to volunteer, a military flight instructor, took the lead in
conducting a debrief and After Action Report to gain consensus on what went
right and what could be done better next time.
Sisters of the Sky muster at the Lone Star Flight Museum.
Legacy Flight Wrap Up
Someone once told me, “It’s either first class or no class.” Eyes Above the Horizon is first class all the way. I’m still impressed that people that I call friends could dream this experience and turn it into an extraordinary reality. From the expansive museum and its knowledgeable staff, the pilots who volunteered their aircraft, fuel, and time, to the leaders who organized the event, everything was fantastic. This community undertaking drew in over 100 Houston-area kids. Since this was my first experience with the Legacy Flight I only had praise to offer.
One of the perks of the academy is the opportunity to interact with living legends. Five generations apart these two share a joy of aviation.
It’s About Belonging
With all the children gone, the volunteers and staff gathered at a local pilot’s home. Chillin’ around a kitchen, eating pizza and wings, laughing, joking, and contributing to the lighthearted revelry, we conducted a business meeting. I was in awe of the moment. There I was, surrounded by black excellence. It’s a situation that rarely happens for me, yet everything about it was familiar. Surrounded by people that I just met earlier that day, I felt at home. I knew it would be a long while before this happened again, so I intentionally captured the moment in my mind.
For instance, I’d estimate there are fewer than 10 black officers on my Air Force base. Without intentional efforts, I can go months without contact with peers from a similar cultural background. aired with my history of perpetually being “the only one,” camaraderie with black peers has been an infrequent indulgence my whole life. Even more infrequent as an Air Force officer is the opportunity to observe other black officers lead and the access to socialize with aviators, let alone black aviators.
Black aviators have just as much swag today as they did in 1944 (and slightly more women).
Around 10 flyers or so floated around the house. In addition to my flight instructor buddy, there’s one of his flight students, a bright, young woman who divided her attention between her studies and the lively conversation. Another aviator present, a fighter pilot who earned his flying license before his driver’s license shared a video of his first flight solo as a child. A Surveillance and Reconnaissance pilot recalled highlights of the day which included the children asking if he can see outer space from his aircraft…he can! The question and answer session took an awkward turn when the kiddos got very officious about his bathroom habits while wearing a spacesuit. He’d just recently bought his own plane for recreational flying.
A commercial airline pilot, who also flies for the Air Force reserves lamented his economical travel arrangements of riding shotgun to Texas, sitting on the uncomfortable hump (also known as the jump seat) between two the two pilots flying the plane. Navigators, air battle managers, and a few others with careers in aviation talked and joked with the group. And then there was me. As the furthest removed from aviation, I was a guest within the group but very much deeply embraced. We all just exchanged ideas, vibed, and enjoyed one another’s company. It was a pleasure.
A U2, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, pilot dresses a student in his space suit. The U2, also called the Dragon Lady, first flew in 1955 and is a spy aircraft which can loiter in the air taking aerial pictures of an area of operation. Pilots must use liquid oxygen and a spacesuit in high altitudes.
I recalled a former, non-black Naval Aviator who once said Top Gun was what inspired him to fly. Nothing about Top Gun appealed to me. When I watch Top Gun, I see an environment where I’m likely to get touched without my consent. In that situation, I can predict that I’ll have perspectives and ideas to share, but the group will dismiss them. Talked over and interrupted will be standard behavior.
Additionally, I can expect to be misunderstood and mischaracterized. I will have to tolerate racist micro-aggressions and get accustomed to both casual and overt sexism for the sake of being tolerated at all. I’ll be spoken to condescendingly or harshly if at all. They’ll go play volleyball on the beach, and I won’t even be invited (notice, the volleyball scene did not include the only black guy in the Top Gun flight class; that’s remarkably accurate). If included by the group at all, there will be a sense that I am involved out of obligation. They’ll find singing “That Loving Feeling” amusing. I won’t. But I’ll have to pretend I do to avoid being the stick-in-the-mud. In other words, I can always expect to be ever so slightly out of place. Much like watching Top Gun from the screen, even if I were present in the group, I’d still most likely be on the outside looking in and kept at arm’s length.
Inspiring future generations is a whole community effort. About six Houston-Area pilots spent their Saturday volunteering to flying 100 students around. A local chain restaurant catered lunch at no cost. Local teachers rallied promising future aviators to the event.
Stanford University researchers Robin Ely and Debra Meyerson published a study that indicates that the male culture prevents women from excelling in corporate America. Other studies suggest that it is specifically White Male Culture that detours those who are not white and male from participation or struggling when they do. I’d surmise that’s a major reason minorities and women avoid careers in aviation. In other words, it’s not necessarily a lack of exposure, interest, or ability; it’s the culture.
Another study states, “Like fish in water, many white men never have to leave their culture from birth to boardroom. Often they are unaware they have a culture that others must negotiate.” Perhaps people outside of this culture are like aquatic frogs. We can swim with the fish from time to time but eventually, need to come up for air. Until hanging out with these guys, I never knew there was air for a temporary reprieve.
Among this group, I don’t stand out. There is no foreign culture to navigate. My dual consciousness isn’t employed. I don’t have to walk on eggshells to avoid my entire race being stereotyped by any action that I do that’s perceived as negative. I don’t need to regulate myself into perfection in order to debunk stereotypes. Any positive attributes aren’t seen as exceptional for my race because being exceptionally brilliant and talented is expected. I’m not tone-policed. I’m not a novelty, token, or commodity. Around these folks, my voice is heard and appreciated. Here, no topics are avoided. For example, we discussed the merits of attending Cornell versus Hampton for undergrad which largely centered on race, inclusion, and acceptance. One of the volunteers, the only Caucasian aviator in the group, quietly listened. No one felt compelled to code switch to accommodate his comfort. We were all free to be our authentic selves.
Students answer questions on a pre-flight checklist.
After Party Socialization
After stuffing our faces and concluding the meeting, we suited up for esprit de corps in the Houston nightlife. I did not stand out in the bar. It’s a rare occasion that going out with colleagues doesn’t include Journey, Bohemian Rhapsody, Copperhead Road, or Sweet Caroline. Although I’ve certainly had a blast belting out the words to Don’t Stop Believing and doing the Copperhead Road line dance, that music usually doesn’t make the cut to my celebration playlist. It’s just as foreign to me as shouting, “tickie tockie tickie tockie” under an Octoberfest tent in Munich. Fun. But Foreign.
Lasting Effects of Legacy Flight Academy
After that weekend I did some research. That research led me to the ground school at my local aero club the following Wednesday. Not long after that, I took my first flight lesson with me in control of the throttle. I Flew A Daggum Airplane! I finally understood the hype my aviator friends had been talking about. That night my dreams were about flying. This is the impact of representation. Having access to a flying community whom I could identify and where I belonged with was all it took to convince me to consider aviation after decades of being aviation adjacent.
In short, it’s not enough to sell aviation as a cool thing to do. That doesn’t make flying any different from all the other cool stuff active, ambitious people do every day. People want to belong. Deep down, everyone wants to be part of something wonderful; that’s the very reason I traveled to Houston in the first place. The camaraderie within an elite network is what makes this profession or hobby unique. Knowing there’s a tight-knit community of people like me and has always been a community like me, is the most significant selling point in encouraging diversity in aviation. Being part of the flying world touches on the top three of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Who knew, I traveled to Houston to volunteer to plant seeds of aviation excellence in the impressionable minds of children not knowing Legacy Flight Academy would sow those seeds in me as well.
A teenage, licensed pilot and alum of Legacy Flight Academy shows younger children the sky is not the limit when it’s her point of view.
***If you’d like to be part of something great by supporting the early exposure to the thrill of aviation to a wide range of children, you can donatehere or inquire about volunteer opportunities. To learn how you can bring Eyes Above The Horizon to your hometown check out the Legacyflightacademy.org website. You can also list Legacy Flight Academy as your Amazon Smile non-profit. Or donate as a birthday gift to me on my Facebook link or LFA’s.
New York City has no shortage of beautiful and iconic backdrops for your shoot. I’ve collected the advice from talented photographers I know, did my own research, plus my own experience from my latest photoshoot in NYC to give you tips on creating a successful photoshoot in NYC or elsewhere. So, regardless if this photoshoot is to add a professional touch to your insta or for timeless family keepsakes I hope this post save you time in your planning efforts.
Understand the Purpose of Your Shoot
Not only should you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve during this photoshoot, you need to make sure everyone involved understands that too. If you’re imagining an edgy artistic concept while your photographer is thinking grace and elegance, that’s sure to lead to frustration and disappointment in the end.
If a single picture is worth 1000 words, and you’re going to be taking pictures for hours, think of a photoshoot as a photo novel…and you’re the main character. Take some time to understand the story and narrative you want to tell. Check Pinterest, IG, and other social media sites to guide you. Consider making an inspiration board with all the photos that appeal to you. Be able to articulate what attracts you to the photos you select. For example, is it the editing, the use of lights and shadows, the minimalism or maximalism, the filter, the posing that draws you into the photograph? Take all of this to provide your concept to your photographer.
“Winging it can be fun but you need at least a rough plan of action. Make sure both sides know and agree on a game plan. So plan, plan plan…and then don’t forget to be spontaneous!” — Aaron Mann, photographer, Back Home Again Photos
Select the Photographer That can Tell That Story
Knowing what kind of shoot you want to achieve is going to help you select a photographer. While a wedding photographer can certainly do other styles of photos, his or her area of expertise is couples, not children. So, if you’re photographing a pack of rug rats, you might want to reconsider. Look at the portfolio and determine if your photographer has the experience to make your vision come to life.
Clearly, not New York City. But the photographer and I worked together to come up with the concept to tell the story of home.
Other considerations:
Also make sure you choose a photographer that knows the city or area.
Make sure your energy levels and personalities complement each other. You’ll be spending a lot of time with each other, you’ll want to be comfortable with each other. In fact, be sure everyone involved in the day has compatible personalities.
When I selected a photographer, I knew I wanted to work with my friend, Keith Brooks. Other places you can check for photographers (outside of a google search) Flytophotographer or Freelance.com or KYMA or even Craig’s list
Selecting a location
Your inspiration board is going to direct your location. Manhattan is expansive. And you’ll be covering a lot of ground if you try to get pictures of everything. I suggest sticking to one neighborhood. Since my concept was exploring SoHo and Brooklyn, two neighborhoods relatively close to each other, it wasn’t much distance between each shot and offered plenty of things to shoot along the way.
For family photoshoots you’re going to need easy access to bathrooms and room for little ones to release their energy. Consider Central Park, smaller parks, and the Central Park Zoo for photoshoots involving children.
Under the Manhattan Bridge is a popular photo opportunity for tourist.
Date and Time
The early model gets the most popular tourist attraction. Highly iconic spots: Flatiron building, Brooklyn Bridge, DUMBO, Statue of Liberty, Times Square, the Imagine Mosaic, Top of the Rock are all going to have thousands of tourists doing the same thing as you. Get there early at first light golden hour if possible. Also remember that the light has a way of playing peek-a-boo with skyscrapers casting shadows as the sun moves throughout the day. Check sunrise and sunset schedules. If possible, do a bit of homework and check the way the sun looks at certain locations at certain points of the day and schedule your shoot around those times. Also keep weather and season in mind.
Hair and Make up
If you’re going to have hair style changes, do the most challenging hair style first. That means, that effortless messy bun that takes a ton of effort to achieve…come with that already done. It’s a lot easier to undo it for later shots than put it up. Bring make-up wipes to get that MAC lip color off and change up the style. Depending on your style, faux lashes never really hurt anyone.
Go to Sephora and have them teach you how to contour. You can make multiple visits to learn different techniques. Better yet, bring a talented friend along or schedule your shoot after getting your makeup applied.
This was a test shot done with my friend’s iPhone while the photographer was adjusting lenses and playing with light. Test shots are helpful for the subject and photographer.
What to wear
I planned attire that was easy to switch up. I had leggings which could easily be worn under jeans, under a skirt, and as standalone pants (regardless of what the modesty police try to say). That’s a quick change for three outfits. I also wore a tank top under my shirt and sweaters for easy top changes without the need of a changing room. I brought a pair of comfortable walking shoes plus some sassier shoes. I packed a small jacket that was easy to fold into a small tote. Again, your concept is going to guide this. My friend who lives in NYC offered a whole rolling suitcase of outfit changes and boots. Coordinate with your photographer and most fashionable friends on what colors and patterns would work best.
All Black base makes an easy wardrobe change with the right accessories.
Props
I’m a notebook and reading book kind of girl so those are always my go-to accessories, but consider pens, umbrellas, guitars, cameras, etc.
Fashion accessories can change the overall look of an outfit. Change up a look with hats, scarves, gloves, totes, purses, jackets, change of shoes, hair accessories, sun shades, and faux reading glasses.
On location props- There’s always a street-side florist in the city that that you can buy flowers for a charming prop. Of course, just remember if you buy, instead of borrow, you’ll have to keep up with the flowers for the rest of the shoot or give them away. This last visit to the city, we also saw Christmas trees being sold. Could have been a cute prop doing a two-woman carrying of one of the trees but we passed.
Posing
Reference Google, Instagram, Pinterest or browse through your favorite magazine to practice and get an idea of at least three poses. Make one your signature pose.
Since I’m kind of a cheese ball, I’ve learned my signature pose is leaping. After reviewing several photos, I realize I’m always in the air. That doesn’t always work for sophisticated shoots. I’d suggest printing off a pose cheat sheet so you can recall some posing ideas on the spot.
Remember to take a few moments to loosen up from time to time. I had a tendency to get stiff and statuesque. Shaking my shoulders out and being reminded to keep my hands and face soft and relaxed helped.
Pre-coordination considerations
If you’re taking pictures indoor, you might have to make phone calls to the location just to be sure you have permission to photograph locations.
Create an itinerary. Select the locations, the types of shots you absolutely want at that location, and what makes efficient sense considering time of day, lighting, and travel times. Also take consideration on how you will get from point A to Point B. Sometimes it’s more cost and time efficient to take a Lyft. Other times you’ll be better off hailing a cab instead of waiting for a lift. If it’s rush hour, head underground for the metro.
Consider places for bathroom breaks. Starbucks serves as the default NYC public restroom so get an idea where the nearest one is in each of your locations ahead of time. Take the opportunity to go each time you have the chance.
In addition to your change of wardrobe, be sure to pack: Snacks, pain reliever, water, comfy shoes, dry socks for rainy days, lip glosses, makeup remover, and anything else unique to your shoot.
Get some rest the night before.
Eat a meal before your shoot. It’s best for you and the photographer to grab a bite in a coffee shop before. Reason one: you’ll be on the same eating schedule. Two, it’ll give you a moment to chat about the day.
And of course, relax and have fun during your shoot!
Selfie on the Brooklyn Bridge with my photographer, stylist, and creative director.
My new year’s resolution for 2016 was to STOP buying books until I read all the ones I already had. That lasted until February. In fact, 2016 ended up being my most well-read year since fourth grade. It’s the best resolution I ever broke. During that time, I read a slew of books that made it to this Black History Month Books List.
Last year, I felt like I discovered a whole new world within black literature. In my first 13 years of school, only two black authors appeared on my reading list (and one was optional). Although I may be late to the black literary game, I know there are other folks like me who could benefit from knowing these titles. While reading Baldwin, I wondered how much richer and poetic American literature we’d share in our libraries today had America not missed the opportunity by outlawing literacy from 3.2 million individuals. While Reading Frederick Douglas, I realized nothing that is being discussed today about the racial climate is unique to what Frederick Douglas discussed nearly 200 years ago.
February 21, 1965
February 21, 1965
From a historian’s perspective (as opposed to a literary scholar), I consider these books the cannon of Black American Literature with historical significance. And Just in time for Black History Month, I wanted to share and give others the resources to learn. I know you won’t have the time to conquer all 28 in 28 days, however, if this month inspires you to purchase (or the more economical option—check out) the books, you’ll have them accessible to read or reference for rest of the year. Books not on the shelf are books that won’t get read. Music If you’ve missed it, I’ve already blogged a children’s reading list.
1. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (an Autobiography)
Without sugar-coated sweetness, Frederick Douglas speaks frankly on the common practices of slavery that he experienced in this memoir supporting abolition. Although hundreds of slave narratives were written prior to the start of the Civil War, Fredrick Douglas’ is one considered an American classic. The religious hypocrisy of slave owners is a recurring theme throughout the text. As the slave son of a white slave owner, Douglas is sold and leased out around the Maryland and Virginia area before making his escape to New York and later Bedford, Mass. His story is remarkable. He also has three others, but start with this one.
2. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
A segment of this was assigned as required reading back in college. Nearly a whole decade later I finally got around to actually reading the whole thing (Hey, college students are very busy)… and my mind was blown! He’s a seriously sappy, gracious, bleeding-heart kind of writer. Unlike Frederick Douglas who seized and opportunity to escape, Booker T. Washington was freed at the end of the Civil War. The places he traveled, the people he met, and how he was able to manipulate the system to make it work for him as a black man during Reconstruction America and Jim Crow America are really quite remarkable.
3. The Souls of Black Folks byW.E.B. DuBois
Written during a time when there was public debate on whether black people had souls, readers might conclude the purpose of the book is to humanize people who had been considered real estate just 40 years earlier. You have to read Up From Slavery first, to fully appreciate W. E. B. DuBois’ epic takedown of all Booker T’s methodology and beliefs on education in one pointed chapter. Fortunately, there’s a book called “Three Negro Classics” that maintains both works together conveniently so you can flip back and forth as a reference. Additionally, this is where W.E. B. DuBois introduces the concept of double consciousness, which is an important concept and theme to understand for all other African-American literature on this list. These three books should be read independently but with the relationship of the Authors’ and their diverse backgrounds in mind. You’ve got a fugitive, formerly enslaved man, a man freed at the end of sanctioned slavery, and a pedigreed man born in a free society, all giving their perspectives, which, of course, will be born from their experiences.
4. The Miseducation of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
Carter G. Woodson is considered the Father of Black History. He was one of the first to study the history of African-Americans, earning a degree from Berea College (in Kentucky) before attaining a PhD from Harvard. He also established Negro History Week in 1926, which evolved into Black History Month. So, of course, he’d be on my list of Black History Month Books. The miseducation he speaks of hinges on the education system’s failure to present an authentic black history in schools. There’s a scarcity of literature and humanities, distortion of facts, and overall erasure of black presence in the curriculum. When black people do appear in the school curriculum, it is in a menial, subordinate, inhuman role. Schooling thus becomes cultural indoctrination for white students and cultural subordination for black students rather than education.
5. The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man by James Weldon Johnson
This is a historical fiction based on real-life events of the reconstruction era. It discusses the horrific events that happened in America that led to the decision to no longer be black. The themes of loss of black childhood innocence through racial awakening are timeless throughout American history. It also introduces the three-tier economic class system within the Black American society in which most white people didn’t recognize at the time of publication. The story also brings up the complexities and sacrifices of passing as white.
6. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs
According to historian Henry Louis Gates, before the end of the Civil War, more than one hundred former slaves published moving stories of their captivities and their escape. No group of enslaved people anywhere during any other era left such a prolific testimony to the horror of their bondage and servitude. Many slave narratives, including Fredrick Douglas, speak of the commonality of slave rapes. But Harriot speaks to the dynamic, turmoil, and madness such actions and the potential of rape brings to all the women of the household—wives and enslaved girls.
7. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Why on Earth did I wait so long to be introduced to James Baldwin? I’ve never wanted to be part of a writer’s social circle more than when reading any essay by this literary legend. The way he writes of being young, black, and gifted in Harlem and the impact of the church on black American lives is not only artistically talented but timeless in its themes. There’s plenty of Baldwin out there but here is a good place to start. I enjoyed the thought-provoking layers of how sex and religion are intertwined in society Baldwin displayed in the reading. We get to witness a lot culture in this book. There’s plenty of Baldwin out there but here is a good place to start.
8. Native Son by Richard Wright
This was one of two books written by an African-American that made it on my school’s reading list in 13 years (and it was an optional summer reading). The title is a condemnation of American society. Bigger Thomas, the novel’s protagonist, is a “native son” of America—born and raised under the conditions of a black man in America, he is the product of the societal norms of the country. Local cultural and social forces shaped, created and led him to make the decisions he made. There is no nostalgia or romanticism in this direct critique of American society. This book must be read back to back with a James Baldwin work. If Twitter was a thing during mid-20th century America, we’d be sure to see some beef between these two, just like we saw with Washington and Dubois. So it is helpful to read them with the memory of the other writer in mind.
9. Autobiography of Malcolm X
After reading Native Son, Malcolm will stand out as another example of America’s Native Son. To actually know Malcolm X, is to go to the primary source and see for yourself rather than the opinions of someone who may not have even met him. Plus he had some help by Alex Haley (author of Roots and Queen).
10. Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or A Nightmare by James H. Cone As far as Black History Month books are concerned, this one is pivotal. Read this book after reading Malcolm’s biography (ok, who am I kidding? Most are just going to watch the movie…but I implore you to buy the book at least for reference!). This was required reading for my African American History course at the University of Kentucky. I re-read the book again this past Kwanzaa. After eight years of a changed perspective, I still find it relevant and a must. This book examines the legacies of two of the most influential leaders of last century. All too often, commentators ask, “What would MLK say?” about today’s issues. You cannot know Martin without the study of Malcolm, and yet Malcolm is not studied in schools.
Key Quote:“In order to offset Malcolm’s appeal to the black community, Martin was adopted as the darling of their white liberal community and was portrayed by the media as the ideal black leader.”
11. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation by Kwame Ture (Formerly Known as Stokely Carmichael) and Charles V. Hamilton.
I still have the “used” Wildcat Textbooks sticker for $10.40 on my copy. It’s one of the few required readings I maintained from college. Before coming to conclusions on the Black Panther Party based on the assessment of J. Edgar Hoover, read this book to get the full picture. This Black History Month book breaks down the Black Panther Party from those most intimately involved with the organization, which is the best source of information.
Key Quote: “Nevertheless, some observers have labeled those who advocate black power as racists; they have said the call for self-identification SELF DETERMINATION IS “RACISM IN REVERSE” OR “BLACK SUPREMACY.” This is a deliberate and absurd lie. There is no analogy-by any stretch of definition or imagination-between the advocates of Black Power and white racists. Racism is not merely exclusion on the basis of race but exclusion for the purpose of subjecting or maintaining subjugation. The goal of the racists is to keep black people on the bottom arbitrarily and dictatorially, as they have in this country for over three hundred years. The goal of black self-determination and BLACK SELF-IDENTITY — BLACK Power — is full participation in the decision making process affecting the lives of black people, and recognition of the virtues in themselves as black people.” P. 47
12. African-American Poetry: An Anthology 1773-1927 edited by Joan R. Sherman
This thin paperback is marked as only $1. It’s a creative walk through American history, starting with Phillis Wheatley, who was kidnapped from Senegal or Gambia and arrived in Boston from the ship called “Phillis” in 1761 and later became America’s first published African). It also includes the Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Negro National Anthem) by James Weldon Johnson. It was coined as The Negro National Anthem in 1919, twelve years before the Federal Government adopted the Star Spangled Banner. Never was the Negro National Anthem ever discussed in 20 years of school. Not even in Arts and Humanities. That is just another motivation for compiling this Black History Month Books list. To help close that gap in understanding and history.
Key Poems:
Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson
Not A Man, And Yet A Man, by fellow Kentuckian Alberry Alston Whitman (Hart County)
I, Too by Langston Hughes
Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
If We Must Die by Claude McKay
Sympathy by PLD (born of previously enslaved Parents from Kentucky)
13. The Collected Poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar,edited by Joanne M. Braxton This book has been on my bookshelf since childhood. I actually think it belongs to my mom, technically…but hey, what’s her’s is mine, right? One of my favorites, “Negro Love Song” (page 49 in my edition), is not included in the African American Poetry Anthology. It must be recited in call-and-answer form.
14. Annie Allen by Gwendolyn BrooksI got a text message from a friend at a crazy hour while I slept (OK, so it was like 10:30p but still, I’m over 30).When I responded the next morning, “Why are you up so late?” I got the reply, “I lurk late,” accompanied by a SoundCloud audio of Ms. Brooks herself performing We Real Cool. I love that I have a friend who sends me the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning poets via text. As far as poetry is concerned, her’s is a collection that should be on your shelf.
15. Invisible Manby Ralph Ellison
I was out to diner in Dayton, OH with the same friend mentioned above who spotted this book haphazardly tossed the top of the garbage can beside the entry of a restaurant.
“Hey, this is a black book,” He said.
We stepped outside and noticed we were right across the street from a giant bookstore. “Someone probably stole this book from that bookstore, realized it was about black people and threw it away here,” he hypothesized.
We both recognized finding this book as a treasure. He also mentioned he had no intention of reading it. It caused a minor debate on who should get to keep it, since it wasn’t going to get read if it went home with him. It still went home with him. I got to Amazon my own copy. Invisible Man deals with social issues of black people in 1950s America and is, predictably, timeless in its exploration of individuality and personal identity.
16. I know Why the Caged Bird Sings– Maya Angelou This autobiographical journey depicts how Maya Angelou overcame insecurities, inferiority complexes, and youthful traumas into a self-actualized, respectable woman. Literature was her saving grace. The title was inspired by a line in a Langston Hughes poem.
17. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston This is the one and only book with black characters written by a black author who was assigned reading in school. On the first day of AP English, we were asked what made us choose our two choices from our four options on the summer reading list. One of my books was Richard Wright’s Native Son so, I frankly announced that it’s senior year and it’s the first time I’d been assigned a black author.
It’s important to know that I’d spent all summer at the Governor’s Scholars program, where I had black peers for the first time and spent time with students from Central High School (Historically Black high school in Louisville…and National Black History Academic Team Champions to 50 years in a row…or however many). The teacher’s face gave her away. After that, Ms. Hurston found her way in our class reading. It’s a country folk love story featuring a good-looking, spirited, black woman who doesn’t follow any of the conventions set for women at the time. First published in 1937, it was out of print for nearly 30 years when the University of Illinois Press reissued it in 1978, at which time it was instantly embraced by the literary establishment as one of the greatest works in the canon of American fiction.
18. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
This is the first novel by the Noble Prize for Literature-winning author. You know you’re in for a good read when you have a Nobel Prize Winner on the banned books list. Written while a professor at Howard in 1970, the book takes place in 1941 rural Ohio and discusses issues such as racism, incest, and child molestation. She explores the concepts of “colonization of the mind,” identity, classism within a race, and European standards of beauty versus black beauty standards in American society. My friend, Megan, invited me to her class in college where they were discussing this book (I think she got extra credit for bringing a friend). I think to get the most out of this book is to read and discuss with people with different perspectives so you don’t miss key points.
19. Great Speeches by African Americans, edited by James Daley
The collection begins with Henry Highland Garnet’s 1843, “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” and continues with two centuries of orations on freedom in America. I think college and high school English and History classes are missing out on so much intellectual wealth by not critically examining these powerful, moving, and timeless speeches. After so many discussions in 2016 it became apparent that I wasn’t saying anything new. I wasn’t saying anything that Frederick Douglas had not already mentioned on July 5, 1852 or Mary Church Terrell described in “What it Means to Be Colored in the Capitol of the United States” in 1906. Sojourner Truth’s Aint I A Woman did come to mind on January 21, 2017 (during the woman’s march). I do wish the book included more speeches by King and more X and at least something from Michelle Obama, but this is one book that could really do so much in closing gaps of understanding.
20. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race And Inheritance by Barack Obama
This book follows the identity struggle of Barack Obama, the man, not the legend or political figure. His story reflects the experience of all Black Americans exploring their identity in America through the lens of double consciousness with the added hurdles of being the son of an absent African father and a white American mother who grows up as the only black person in his family and lives in Hawaii and later Indonesia. In his search for a workable meaning to his life, he travels to Africa and ends up in the South Side of Chicago as a Black American.
21. Black Feeling, Black Talk by Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni came into prominence after unleashing her heart on paper in response to the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and Robert Kennedy, and the pressing need she saw to raise awareness of the plight and the rights of black people. After the death of Malcolm X on February 21, 1965, Black American activists fell into two camps: Revolutionary Nationalists and Cultural Nationalists. Nikki Giovanni was a headliner in the Cultural Nationalist movement, using the arts to reflect pride in African American history, identity, and culture. Nikki is undoubtedly an intellectual. But before that, she is Black and a woman whose talent with words is merged with the universal Black experience. Her poems reflect the arts and history of the time. BTW, there’s a two-hour conversation between Nikki and James Baldwin available on YouTube. It’s profound. And again, their experiences in 1970 are the same and relatable as black experiences in America today.
22. The Rose That Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur’s most intimate and honest thoughts were uncovered only after his death with the instant classic The Rose That Grew from Concrete. Written in his own handwriting and with a foreword by Nikki Giovanni, you get to close to the heart of the young lyricist before he came into the limelight.
23. Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored by Clifton Taulbert
The story of a young boy growing up in Mississippi during 1950s. It’s a story of family warmth and nostalgia and youthful innocence protected from the harshness of the American reality. This book captures a snapshot of the time of our country.
24. The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories by Charles W. Chestnut
This story explores colorism and introduces the Blue Vein Society. It continues the themes of timeless struggles of identity and acceptance as a black person in America.
25. Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class by Lawrence Otis Graham
Debutante cotillions, the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of the black upper class and the focus of the first book written about the black elite by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group.
26. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. Yet, as legal star Michelle Alexander reveals, today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal.
27. Roots: The Saga of An American Family by Alex Haley This Pulitzer Prize-winning epic was turned into a heavy miniseries that did not romanticize the reality of the slave-holding South. Although parts conflicted with genealogy work, and parts also were proved plagiarized, this work ignited a new fuel to African-American history and African-American genealogy work. Of course, due to poor documentation of African-American families, contradictions would be expected. My dear cousin read this entire work for a high school book report — significantly more pages than anyone else. And despite being encouraged to just watch the movie, of course, she got the emotion that the miniseries couldn’t capture. I encourage others to do the same.
This book was received into our family as a Kwanzaa gift to my dad from a family friend. In the inscription, she wrote:
“I am overwhelmed by all the life lessons you have taught me over the years. You epitomize the motto: It takes a village to raise a child.”
She went on to speak of her days being the only black student at the same high school I attended (although she graduated several years before I enrolled) on the same all-white dance team as me, attending the same predominantly white university, and even working in tech in California like me and how it framed her expedition on The African Continent. She visited the village of Alex Haley’s legacy and felt compelled to share the enlightening experience with those closest to her. The book has accompanied me through 5 different homes before I read it just last year.
This American story begins with 33 chapters of self-determination and autonomy in The Gambia, followed by seven chapters of horrors of on board a slave ship, then dedicated to 79 chapters documenting the American experience of an African family.
Key Quote: “Kunta wondered if he had gone mad. Naked, chained, shackled, he awoke on his back between two other men in a pitch darkness full of steamy heat and sickening stink and a nightmarish bedlam of shrieking, weeping, praying and vomiting. He could feel and smell his own vomit on his chest and belly. His whole body was one spasm of pain from the beatings he had received in the four days since his capture. But the place where the hot iron had been put between his shoulders hurt the worst.”
28. Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in he U.S. by Geneva Smitherman and H. Samy Alim
This reading is a study of linguistic studies. It makes the theisis that Obama owes his election success largly in his abilities to successfully coat-switch from a Washington insider to culturally Black modes of conversation. In addition to breaking down the necessity of linguistic code-switching, it goes into an unsugar-coated synopsis of American history.
Optional Reading
These last Black History Month Books are significant in American race-relations and historic literature. They capture the Black American experience from a white perspective. In some cases, like “To Kill A Mocking Bird” the entire book centers around the fate of a black man but his voice and autonomy is silenced throughout the entire novel. In most cases, you’ve probably already read them in school.
1. To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriot Beecher Stowe
3. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
4. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
What other books do you think should be on the Black History Month Books list? Comment below so I can check them out and add them to a later book list.
