Blog of AALBC.com’s Founder & Webmaster

Blog of AALBC.com’s Founder & Webmaster Celebrating our Literary Legacy #readingblack

History

2016bookbook promotionbooksHistoryWomen
Troy

Anita Hemmings, the First Black Student to Attend Vassar College

Karin Tanabe’s gripping new historical novel, The Gilded Years (Washington Square Press, June 7, 2016) is based on the true story of Anita Hemmings, the first black student to attend Vassar College. With “spot on” dialogue and “narration reminiscent of novels of the 1890s” (Anna Jean Mayhew, author of The Dry Grass of August), Tanabe has crafted a tonally masterful yet supremely relevant narrative on race, women’s rights, and the challenges of finding one’s place in the world.

Read More
2016African-AmericanbooksIndependenceinternetMagazinesTroy's RantsWebsite Tips and Recommendations
Troy

Our Future is Cyberspace

As access to cyberspace becomes less expensive, more voices will be heard and this period, the most prolific in the history of African American Literature, will rise to worldwide prominence, no longer having to obey the tastes of the outsiders in power or the dictates of the establishment-manufactured Talented Tenth. —Ishmael Reed (Black Issues Book Review; November-December 1999)

During the period Ishmael Reed wrote this I would have agreed with him. A year earlier, I’d started AALBC.com with just that belief in mind. But I was naive, and today I strongly disagree with the statement. I wonder if Ishmael disagrees with it now too.

Read More