Always Reading

I’m honored to bestow the @librarycongress Prize for American Fiction on a writer as imaginative and knowing as James McBride. He knows the American soul deeply, reflecting our struggles and triumphs in his fiction, which so many readers have intimately connected with.

richmondstandard.com/richmond/2024/… #alwaysreading #books

Historian, sociologist, and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois was born #OTD in 1868. #DYK he is credited with one of the first works of Afrofuturist literature with his short story “The Comet.”

Dr. Helen Dickens (b 1909) was admitted to the American College of Surgeons in 1950 & spent her career teaching & practicing medicine in ways that transformed women’s health care. The child of a formerly enslaved father & mother in domestic service, Dr. Dickens’ daughter is an MD

Meet Anna Murray Douglass, first wife to Frederick Douglass. Anna helped Frederick escape enslavement. Anna was the first of her siblings to be born free after her parents were manumitted. When she met Frederick she was financially prepared to start a life with him but first, he needed freedom. By borrowing a freedman’s protection certificate from a friend and wearing the disguise of a sailor sewn by Anna, Frederick made his way to New York City by train, spending Anna’s money to buy the ticket. She continued to support his abolitionist work for the rest of her life. There is no Frederick Douglass without Anna Murray Douglass. Protect Black women at all costs. Anna Murray Douglass was an American abolitionist, member of the Underground Railroad, and the first wife of Frederick Douglass, from 1838 to her death. In the 1830s, when a teenaged Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was enslaved in the Baltimore household of Hugh Auld, teaching himself, painstakingly and largely in secret, to read and write, a young Black woman named Anna Murray was also at work in that city, shouldering the domestic labor of white households. The families of both these young people had been torn apart by the practice of slavery. Frederick had been separated from his mother so early his memories of her were mere shadows and fragments, and again parted from his maternal grandparents as a young child, “given” by the owner of his plantation birthplace on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to a family member in Baltimore. Anna was the eighth of 12 children—the first who was born free, just a month after her parents’ manumission in rural Denton, MD. She moved to Baltimore at 17 to earn a wage. It was around this time that Anna and Frederick met, perhaps in church (the details are lost to history), and hatched a plan. Frederick took a train to New York City using false papers, Anna followed shortly after, and the two married there in the home of abolitionist David Ruggles in 1838. 🖋️🖊️As the only admin behind this page, I try to research to educate. If you appreciate this effort, you can support to help the page thrive on ko-fi.com/africanarchives. Your support is deeply appreciated! Or just follow the page for articles.

“When Alexander came into Africa, instead of burning libraries-and that's one of the greatest myths of history, he sent the books home to Aristotle who rewrote a lot of them and put his own name on them; so a lot of what you think is Aristotle's writings is plagiarism from African writings."~ Dr. John Henrik Clarke

We at Always Reading, honor February because it holds a special place in our hearts as it allows the country to spotlight the multitude of contributions of Black America!

Celebrating Freedom!👊🏾

This picture is one of the most powerful things to behold and is always the highlight of #AMEC2023 All of these black and brown faces are soon to be physicians! #MedTwitter #BlackMedTwitter The future of healthcare is in great hands and the narrative will forever be changed 🫶🏾🖤

On Easter Sunday, 1939, Marian Anderson concluded her historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial with a composition by Florence Price. These women navigated & faced many of the worst elements of US culture & used their artistry, power, & grace to cultivate & bring out the best.

Thank you to the Catonsville Women’s Giving Circle for supporting @Reading_Inc. We are grateful for your generous donation. We are looking forward to getting Free, New and specially curated books into the hands of the awesome students at @EdHeightsES. Happy Reading📚📚📚

Thank you @Reading_Inc for restocking our bookshelf! This friend started reading while waiting for his family to pick up this afternoon ❤️❤️@flesbcps

@mwebsterbcps @flesbcps Love this!!!

@TamtheAP @EdHeightsES @EHES_Principal Thank you @EdHeightsES for being such an awesome partner!

What a great way to start AEW! Students sharing their love of reading and teachers explaining the importance of representation and access. Thank you @Reading_Inc for your continued support of the @EdHeightsES community. @EHES_Principal

Family Camp-In (Math & Literacy) Night @ScottsBranchES @LTillSBES 🦅⭐️ #ExcellenceForward

❤️@Reading_Inc for providing special opportunities for Ss & families @flesbcps to establish at home bookshelves of wonderful culturally relevant books

What a great day for this new @flesbcps Ss who was registering today! His new teacher was on campus & they got to meet and chat! Double bonus as he got to select one of his favorite genres of books from our @Reading_Inc selection 😍 #smilessayitall

Did you know…?

Did you know…?