A.K. Smiley Public Library Blog

Serving the City of Redlands, California since 1894

The theme of Mental Health Awareness Month for May 2023 is
“Look Around, Look Within,” according to Mental Health America.
Mental health professionals' aim is to emphasize the ways that our surroundings — like safe and stable housing, healthy home lives, neighborhoods and cities, and nature — affect our mental health.

"There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn't." ~ John Green, 2019

ASALH’s 2022 Black History Month theme, virtual events, and the Library’s newest offerings

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The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, founded in 1915, assigns a theme each February for the observance of Black History Month. In 2022 the theme on which the Association is focusing is Black Health and Wellness. The intention, as ASALH writes, is not to “limit the exploration of the Black experience, but to bring to the public’s attention important developments that merit emphasis.” We encourage you to visit the Association’s website and learn more about this year’s theme and previous ones. You may also wish to participate in its month-long 2022 Black History Month Virtual Festival.

Events and programming are also available at these sites, the Library of Congress at https://www.africanamericanhistorymonth.gov, and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) at https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/pbs-showcases-rich-collection-of-stories-to-celebrate-black-history-month/.

In recognition of Black History Month 2022 here at Smiley Library, our staff has created an addendum, directly below, to our lists of 2020-21. Peruse our most recent acquisitions featuring Black history and cultural themes, and Black authors, with which to continue to remember, honor, celebrate, and inspire. These books are on display in the Library near the Circulation Desk. As always, ask a librarian for help finding anything.

New Books – Fiction

Harlem Shuffle / Whitehead, Colson
Skye Falling : a Novel  / McKenzie, Mia
Palmares / Jones, Gayl
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted : a Novel / Allen, Jayne
In Every Mirror She’s Black / Akinmade-Akerström, Lola
The Sweetness of Water / Harris, Nathan, Sgt.
The Year We Learned to Fly / Woodson, Jacqueline (Young Readers) – coming soon
Filthy Animals / Taylor, Brandon (Brandon L. G.)
While We Were Dating / Guillory, Jasmine

New Books – Nonfiction

Call Us What We Carry : Poems / Gorman, Amanda
The Disordered Cosmos : a Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred / Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
The Essential June Jordan / Jordan, June
Letters to My White Male Friends / Ross, Dax-Devlon
Dear Black Girl : Letters from Your Sisters on Stepping into Your Power / Winfrey Harris, Tamara
Hip Hop (and Other Things) : a Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated / Serrano, Shea
Colorization : One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World / Haygood, Wil
The Black History Book / Blyden, Nemata Amelia
Such Color : New and Selected Poems / Smith, Tracy K.
The Matter of Black Lives : Writing from The New Yorker / Cobb, Jelani
Changes : an Oral History of Tupac Shakur / Pearce, Sheldon
King of the Blues : the Rise and Reign of B.B. King / De Visé, Daniel
Dear Senthuran : a Black Spirit Memoir / Emezi, Akwaeke
Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision : Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in her Life and Literature / Nittle, Nadra
Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat : Poems / Rae, Khalisa
Unprotected : a Memoir / Porter, Billy
On Juneteenth / Gordon-Reed, Annette
The 1619 Project : a New Origin Story / Hannah-Jones, Nikole
My Remarkable Journey : a Memoir / Johnson, Katherine G.

2020 – 2021

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a son of formerly enslaved parents, embarked on the establishment of February as Black History Month. He was a teacher and school administrator who in 1912 became the second African American, after W.E.B. Du Bois, to earn a PhD from Harvard University. In February 1926 he launched the precursor of the celebration with “Negro History Week,” designated for the second week in February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Dr. Woodson also founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Each year the Association, which continues to support Dr. Woodson’s cause, assigns a theme to the celebration. The theme for 2021 is “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity” — ideas to ponder as we read.

Please refer to previous blog post Celebrating Black Authors and Black Lives for additional titles. Take a look too at our extensive Catalog for older items on the subject, as well as those for children and young adults. Check them out through our Books to Go program or in person during our new public hours.

Also, don’t forget our eLibrary which includes, besides e-items for download, the new Black Life in America database. This primary source collection provides materials in which you may research the experience and impact of African Americans as recorded by the news media, from 1704 to today. It is an expansive window into centuries of African American history, culture, and daily life — as well as the ways the dominant culture has portrayed and perceived people of African descent.

Streaming video service Kanopy, also located in our eLibrary, features films about racial and social injustice. Inspiring documentaries, like “The Talk: Race in America,” “P.S. I Can’t Breathe,” and many others, can help contribute to a more open dialogue about race relations in modern America.

And finally, for even more ways in which to learn about Black history, view the Heritage Room’s Black History Month webinar series. available for viewing at the AKSPL Special Collections YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx1V0OiVDDpGORavA_W6icQ,  or on Facebook under the Video tab.

The offerings include:

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Centennial Anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is alternatively known as the “Tulsa race riot” or the “Black Wall Street massacre.”

See also, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission website, https://www.tulsa2021.org/, and find our books on the subject here:

Juneteenth, on June 19

Juneteenth (a combination of June and nineteenth) is also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day. It is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Originating in Galveston, Texas, it is now celebrated annually throughout the United States, with increasing official recognition resulting in its declaration as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021. It is commemorated on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865 announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas.

For more information check out our Blog post, Juneteenth, the celebration of emancipation from slavery, now recognized as a federal holiday, and find our books on the subject here:

Visit the University of Redlands website to learn about its Inaugural Juneteenth Celebration, which took place virtually from June 15 through June 17, 2021.

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2020 – 2021

Autobiographies, Biographies, and Memoirs

Cookbooks

DVDs

DVD Documentaries

Fiction

Graphic Novels

History

Humor

Literature

Music

Poetry

Politics, Civil Rights, Law

Sciences, Philosophy, Journalism, Language, Mathematics, Technology, Performing Arts

Social Sciences

Sports