In this original series of live online events, Black writers from the 1700s to the present are re-examined to inspire understanding of race in our country today.

Black Literature Matters celebrates Black writers in four extraordinary evenings. This final event of the series showcases brief excerpts from the work of writers from 1960 to the present including Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Octavia Butler (shown here), Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis, Ernest Gaines, Alex Haley, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Haki Madhubuti, Terry McMillan, Toni Morrison, Malcolm X, Sonia Sanchez, Gil Scott-Heron, Ntozake Shange, Danez Smith, Derek Walcott, and Alice Walker.

Head Librarian Carolyn Waters and Columbia University's Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin introduce the writers, their worlds, and their impact, with dramatic readings by actors Shontelle Thrash and Geoffrey D. Williams.

As New York City's oldest cultural institution, we are honored to do our part to highlight the thousands of stories by African American writers contained within our building and acquired since the 1700s.

Farah Jasmine Griffin is Chair of African-American & African Diaspora Studies, Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies, and the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Professor Griffin received her B.A. from Harvard, where she majored in American History and Literature and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. Her major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, and history. She has published widely on issues of race and gender, feminism, jazz and cultural politics and has been named one of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellows of 2021.

Carolyn Waters has been Head Librarian at the New York Society Library since 2015.

Writer, performer, and educator Shontelle Thrash has performed nationally and internationally and directed plays and other works across the US. Shontelle received her MFA in Acting from Louisiana State University and her MA in Film, Video and Digital Imaging from Georgia State University.

Geoffrey D. Williams' broad range of theater credits include Hoke Coleburn in Driving Miss Daisy, Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun (2004 Jennie Award for Best Performance of an Actor in a Lead Role), and multiple productions of The Piano Lesson. He has been seen onscreen in The Trip to Bountiful for Lifetime Television, Separate But Equal for Disney/MGM Studios, the feature film The Leisure Seeker, and television including HBO's Boycott, AMC's Lodge #49, The CW's Containment, Fox's Sleepy Hollow, and FX's Atlanta.

This event is presented with generous support from the Florence Gould Foundation.

Photo of Octavia E. Butler by Leslie Howle.