Shows
Black Art is LitJayne Allen - Black Girls Must Die ExhaustedIn this week’s episode of Black Art is Lit, host Nykieria Chaney reads the powerful first chapter of Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen, a deeply moving novel exploring the realities of modern Black womanhood.“Black girls must die exhausted” is something that 33-year-old Tabitha Walker has heard her grandmother say before. Of course, her grandmother (who happens to be white) was referring to the 1950’s and what she observed in the nascent times of civil rights. With a coveted position as a local news reporter, Marc-- a “paper-perfect” boyfriend, and a standing Saturday morning appoint...2025-03-2643 minBlack Art is LitOctavia Butler - Parable of the SowerOctavia Butler didn’t just write fiction—she wrote the future. And in Parable of the Sower, that future looks a lot like our present. Economic collapse, climate disaster, political instability—it’s all here.In this episode of Black Art is Lit, host Nykieria Chaney reads the first three chapters of Butler’s groundbreaking novel and breaks down why this book is more relevant than ever. Whether you’re reading it for the first time or revisiting it, this story demands to be heard.Book Summary:In 2024, America is unraveling. Climate change has ravaged the land...2025-03-1145 minBlack Art is LitVictor McGlothin - SinfulThis week Nykieria covers Sinful by Victor McGlothin Everybody's got a weakness and Chandelle Hutchins' is a love of material possessions-a love that is causing serious trouble in her marriage. Chandelle's latest object of desire is an expensive new house. Her husband Marvin knows they can't afford it-and he also knows he can't talk Chandelle into giving it up. With their relationship crumbling under a mountain of debt, it may just be easier for Marvin to walk away. But with Chandelle's scheming cousin Dior in town, money may be the least of the couple's problems . . . Dior's weakness...2025-03-0529 minBlack Art is LitJoy-Ann Reid - Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened AmericaIn this episode, Nykieria covers Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America by Joy-Ann Reid Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later, and Myrlie left school to focus on their growing family.Medgar became the field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP, charged with beating back the most intractable and violent resistance to black voting rights in the country. Myrlie served as Medgar’s secretary an...2025-02-2659 minBlack Art is LitTiffany F. Jackson - Monday’s Not ComingMonday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried.When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses t...2025-02-1838 minBlack Art is LitZakiya Dalila Harris - The Other Black GirlTwenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile...2025-02-1127 minBlack Art is LitIsabel Wilkerson - Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.”Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Isabel Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste syst...2025-02-0549 minBlack Art is LitMichael Harriot - Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of AmericaAmerica’s backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is George Washington’s cherry tree and Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin. It is the fantastic tale of slaves that spontaneously teleported themselves here with nothing but strong backs and negro spirituals. It is a sugarcoated legend based on an almost true story.It should come as no surprise that the dominant narrative of American history is blighted with errors and oversights—after all, history books were written...2025-01-2837 minBlack Art is LitWalter Dean Myers: MONSTERSometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER.2021-05-2527 minBlack Art is LitPriscilla Shirer - Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific and Strategic PrayerNew York Times bestselling author Priscilla Shirer, widely known for her international speaking, teaching, and writing ministries, brings her new role from the 2015 film War Room into the real lives of today’s women, addressing the topics that affect them most: renewing their passion, refocusing their identity, negotiating family strife, dealing with relentless regrets, navigating impossible schedules, succeeding against temptation, weathering their worst fears, uprooting bitterness, and more.2021-02-2314 minBlack Art is LitCicely Tyson - Just As I Am“In her long and extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson has not only succeeded as an actor, she has shaped the course of history.” –President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony
"Just As I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which...2021-02-0417 minBlack Art is LitT. Thorn Coyle - To Raise A Clenched Fist to the Sky"Imagine the Black Panthers of the 1960s, only with magic in a stunningly well-written and detailed take of that turbulent time in history." This alternate history fantasy series is set in the turbulent years of 1968-1969 - particularly the month of December, 1969 - when J. Edgar Hoover took on the Black Panther Party. To Raise a Clenched Fist to the Sky is the first book in The Panther Chronicles saga, an engaging urban fantasy series. If you like far out magic, alternative history, and strong characters who take a stand, then you’ll love this bold novel.2021-01-2718 minBlack Art is LitPresident Joe Biden Inauguration SpeechPresident Joe Biden gives his 2021 Inauguration Speech to America. #JoeBiden #InaugurationSpeech #JoeBidenInaugurationSpeech2021-01-2021 minBlack Art is LitToni Morrison- God Help the ChildThis fiery and provocative novel weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult.
At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride’s mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to...2021-01-1526 minBlack Art is LitFiona Zedde - Femme Like HerNailah Grant only dates studs, races her Camaro for therapy, and believes in leaving her exes in the past where they belong.
But, with a layoff looming and her retired parents about to take a life-changing step Nailah isn’t ready for, her world becomes far from stable. Enter Scottie, the only femme she’s ever allowed close enough to touch her heart. They say trouble comes in threes, and this femme is one with a capital T.2021-01-1111 minBlack Art is LitVictoria Christopher Murphy - Stand Your GroundA black teenage boy is dead. A white man shot him. Was he standing his ground or was it murder?
Janice Johnson is living every black mother’s nightmare. Her seventeen-year-old son was murdered and the shooter has not been arrested. Can the D.A. and the police be trusted to investigate and do the right thing? Should Janice take advantage of the public outcry and join her husband alongside the angry protestors who are out for revenge?
Meredith Spencer is married to the man accused of the killing and she sees her husband and the situation with far more cl...2021-01-1136 minBlack Art is LitZora Neale Hurston - BaracoonIn 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history.2021-01-0828 minBlack Art is LitStacey Abrams - Our Time is NowStacey Abram’s powerful, deeply moving book, “Our Time is Now”, shines a bright light on the ongoing attacks on the sacred, constitutional right to the ballot! - Nancy Pelosi2021-01-0834 minBlack Art is LitDaniel Black - They Tell Me Of A HomeTwenty-eight-year-old protagonist Tommy Lee Tyson steps off the Greyhound bus in his hometown of Swamp Creek, Arkansas―a place he left when he was eighteen, vowing never to return. Yet fate and a Ph.D. in black studies force him back to his rural origins as he seeks to understand himself and the black community that produced him.
A cold, nonchalant father and an emotionally indifferent mother make his return, after a ten-year hiatus, practically unbearable, and the discovery of his baby sister's death and her burial in the backyard almost consumes him. His mother watches his agony when he di...2020-09-0128 minBlack Art is LitL.A. Banks - MinionA Vampire Huntress is born every thousand years - someone to lead the Warriors of Light as they fight against the Dark Realms. Damali Richards, born on to the streets of L.A., brought up in the Projects, is our Huntress.2020-06-1122 minBlack Art is LitNtozake Shange - Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo - Part 2Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo by Ntozake Shange - Part 22020-03-1841 minBlack Art is LitNtozake Shange - Sassafrass, Cypress & IndigoA look into a book that’s described as, “A jubilant celebration of womanhood — as moving as the moon... pure magic”.2020-03-1431 min
Black Art is LitSpunk by Zora Neale HurstonAn introduction to Black Art is Lit with Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston. Spunk tells the story of the characters caught in a deadly love triangle.2020-03-0917 minBlack Art is LitBlack Art is Lit (Trailer)2020-03-0600 min