Books Briefing: The Uncut History of Black Life

📚 “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” by Martin Luther King Jr.

Nikki Giovanni on the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.

“Rather than memorialize King’s leadership, Giovanni turns to the people he seemed to be leading, and asks what they might do, in his absence, to subvert or fulfill his legacy.”

📚 “Reflections on April 4, 1968,” by Nikki Giovanni

📚 “In the Spirit of Martin,” by Nikki Giovanni

📚 “My Poem,” by Nikki Giovanni

Lorna Simpson maps the complex galaxies of black women’s hair

“Much of Simpson’s career has been dedicated to documenting the specificity and breadth of black womanhood, and this collection continues in that vein. Black women’s hair, that fraught matter, is not simply the inspiration for this set of collages; it is the subject.”

📚 Lorna Simpson Collages, by Lorna Simpson

Satirizing the white pursuit of wokeness

“The overarching joke of Such a Fun Age is that while the white characters fret over what black people think of them and their progressive values, the black characters are busy getting on with their lives and trying to keep up with one another.”

📚 Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid

Why every writer needs two educations

“Philosophers have long conceded … that every man has two educations: that which is given to him, and the other that which he gives himself. Of the two kinds the latter is by far the more desirable.”

📚The Mis-Education of the Negro, by Carter G. Woodson

📚Team Seven, by Marcus Burke

The Reference Desk

(New York Public Library)

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About us: This week’s newsletter is written by Myles Poydras. The book he’s reading right now is Too Much and Not the Mood, by Durga Chew-Bose.

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Myles Poydras is an editorial fellow at The Atlantic.