Category: Centering BIPOC Voices Book Group

Centering BIPOC Voices: June Selection

For the month of June, the Centering on BIPOC Voices book group is meeting via Zoom on Wednesday 6/14 at 6:30 pm.  The Heart, of a Woman by Maya Angelou, (1981), is our selection. Note the Audible version is an abridged reading by the author with her unforgettable voice.   Here’s an overview: In her fourth autobiographical volume, […]

Centering BIPOC Voices: February & March Book Discussions

For our February 11th meeting, the Centering BIPOC Voices Book Group will discuss “Home Going” by Yaa Gyasi, 2016, about two sisters and their descendants. In the 1770s, one sister was sold into slavery, and the other became a slave trader’s wife. Gyasi takes us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the plantations of […]

Centering BIPOC Voices: December and January Book Discussions

For our December 10th meeting, the Centering BIPOC Voices Book Group chose Just Us, An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine (Graywolf Press, 2020). This insightful collection of essays, poetry, and photographs recounts Rankine’s experiences engaging strangers in conversations about white privilege and systemic racism. As an example, she flies first class and remembers a white man cutting in front […]

November: Centering BIPOC Voices

The November selection for Centering BIPOC Voices is a novel you won’t want to miss. “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich offers a narrative with compelling characters and her characteristic focus on Native Americans keeping their culture alive through community. “The Sentence” begins on All Souls’ Day 2019 and ends on All Souls’ Day 2020. In those […]

Summer Plans for Centering BIPOC Voices

On June 11th we will continue our discussion of “The 1619 Project” covering chapters 9-18. We’ve learned a lot of things we were never taught before and expect to learn even more. In July we’re taking a potluck approach to our reading. Each participant will choose to read or re-read a book taken either from […]

Centering BIPOC Voices: The 1619 Project

On May 14, at 3:30 p.m. we’ll meet via Zoom to discuss the Preface through Chapter 8 of “The 1619 Project”. Then, on June 11, again via Zoom, we will gather for a discussion of Chapters 9-18 to conclude our explorations. The book is available from Amazon in ebook, print and audio versions, as well […]

Centering BIPOC Voices: Europe, Then Back to America

The April 9th discussion will take us into the history of Africans in Europe as we go back through time with Olivette Otele.  Her work “African Europeans” chronicles lives that many of us know little about.  In May and June, discussions will center on “The 1619 Project” (Nikole Hannah-Jones, editor). The book, like its predecessor from […]

Plan Your Reading with Centering BIPOC Voices: April, May and June

Most of the books we’ve read for Centering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Voices focus on the American experience.  In April, we’ll travel over the sea to change our perceptions about the history of Africans in Europe. Olivette Otele, a Professor of History of Slavery and Memory of Enslavement in the UK offers us a […]

Centering BIPOC Voices: March and April

As is our custom the regular readers of Centering BIPOC Voices have selected books for March and April. Looking ahead for the next two months will allow all who are interested to obtain copies of the books in advance On March 12th anyone who has read The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw should join […]