These are the books I shared this month on Good Day Alabama on WBRC Fox 6.
The Survivors of the Clotilda: Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade
By Hannah Durkin
This brand-new book tells the stories of the last documented survivors of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on U.S. soil. The Clotilda docked in Mobile in July 1860—more than 50 years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century; the wreckage of the 86-foot schooner was found in Mobile Bay in 2019. Through archival, historical, and sociological research, Dr. Durkin shares the stories of the Clotilda’s 110 captives, following their lives from their kidnappings in what is modern-day Nigeria, through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage to the sale of the ship’s 103 surviving children and young people into slavery. The book also recounts other significant parts of our state’s Black history: the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in Selma, the establishment of an all-Black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobile, and the quilting community of Gee’s Bend—a Black artistic circle known across the globe.
And check out the exhibit of contemporary Gee’s Bend quilts—30 quilts from 1975 to 2023—at the Birmingham Public Library through the end of this month.
By Renée Watson, illustrated by Bryan Collier
With art and verse, this stunning picture book introduces young readers (ages 6-8) to the life and work of poet and activist Maya Angelou whose words have uplifted and inspired generations around the world. Angelou is the author of the celebrated autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was the first Black person—and the first woman—to recite a poem at a presidential inauguration (She read her On the Pulse of Morning at Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993.) And she also was the first Black woman to appear on the United States quarter. Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Author Award-winner Renée Watson uses poetry to lyrically chronicle Angelou’s rich life:
Maya’s momma was right.
Maya was a preacher, a teacher.
A Black girl whose voice
chased away darkness, ushered in light.
Vivid collage art by Caldecott Honor recipient and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award-winner Bryan Collier completes this portrait of one of the most influential people in American culture and history.
If you haven’t read it in a while, pick up I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings again. Or better yet, listen to the author read the audiobook.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
By James McBride
This book is a murder mystery in a literary American novel, and it’s also a look at life on the margins of white, Christian America. In 1972, workers in Pottstown, PA, were digging the foundations for a new development when they discovered a skeleton in a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, a poor neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived—and survived—side by side. Readers meet Chicken Hill residents Moshe and Chona Ludlow; Moshe integrated his theater, and Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When a local deaf boy faces being institutionalized, Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, worked together to keep the boy safe. It’s only years later that the truth is revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it. This book by the author of the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird, was an instant bestseller and has garnered numerous awards and mentions; it was one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2023.
If you haven’t read The Good Lord Bird, I highly recommend it, too.
I link to Amazon to show you exactly what book I’m talking about, but I love to shop locally at Church Street Coffee and Books, The Alabama Booksmith, Little Professor, and Thank You Books in Crestwood. And I visit my local library often in person and online!
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