AFRICAN AMERICAN
READ-IN FEBRUARY 2024
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO Tony Bowers Associate English Professor Tony Bowers has been in love with words and story his entire life. Having earned two bachelor’s degrees and a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia College Chicago, Bowers was a middle school English Language Arts teacher and then an English Composition teacher for three years at City Colleges Chicago before joining the College of DuPage. A published author, Bowers wrote On The Nine, a collection of short stories based on the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood on the south side of Chicago where he grew up. Of himself, Bowers says: “As an Associate Professor of English Composition at the College of DuPage, I am blessed to work with students to capture their voices on the page. I'm currently hard at work on my first novel J&J's Jive Ass Revue. I write for the joy of it. I teach writing because I want others to have that same feeling I do every time I put my fingers to a keyboard. I have worked on my collection of short stories, On The Nine, for over seven years. I hope and pray that each story touches the hearts of the readers.” We thank Tony for sharing his experiences with us today!
Marquis Sanders Marquis Sanders is a Glenbard West sophomore and a current student in Mr. Jeffrey’s Hip Hop Production class. Marquis created a song in Hip Hop Production 1 that is included in today’s playlist. We thank Marquis for sharing his music with with us for the African American Read-In!
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO OUR FEATURED ARTISTS
Rhiannon Jones Artist’s statement My name is Rhiannon Jones and my passion is being able to create my own art. I love my family and I love animals, and being able to incorporate those types of ideas and topics into my art is what I enjoy. Making art that has so much meaning is what I aim for every time I create. When I was little, art was a big part of my life and I’m able to express how I feel on paper.
Rhiannon’s work appears on the back cover of our program. We thank Rhiannon for sharing her art with us!
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO OUR FEATURED ARTISTS
Alycia perez Artist’s statement I make art because it makes me happy. I love to draw. Most of my art is based on my relationship with my siblings or my mom. A lot of the figures in my art have ethnically curly or textured hair. This goes back to what/who my art is about: my siblings. We all share a common attribute, our hair. My hair for me makes up a lot of my identity and makes me identifiable, that’s why it’s such a big attribute within my art.
Alycia’s work appears on the front cover of our program. We thank Alycia for sharing her art with us!
“New Day’s Lyric” BY Amanda Gorman READ BY DEANDRA BASS
May this be the day We come together. Mourning, we come to mend, Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better. Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning That though we weren’t ready for this, We have been readied by it. We steadily vow that no matter How we are weighed down, We must always pave a way forward. This hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal, Someday we can venture beyond it, To leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, But reach toward what is next. What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove pure. Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree, Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee, Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake; Those moments we missed Are now these moments we make, The moments we meet, And our hearts, once all together beaten, Now all together beat.
Come, look up with kindness yet, For even solace can be sourced from sorrow. We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday, But to take on tomorrow. We heed this old spirit, In a new day’s lyric, In our hearts, we hear it: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. Be bold, sang Time this year, Be bold, sang Time, For when you honor yesterday, Tomorrow ye will find. Know what we’ve fought Need not be forgot nor for none. It defines us, binds us as one, Come over, join this day just begun. For wherever we come together, We will forever overcome.
“Say It Loud,” Brown Girl Dreaming BY Jacqueline woodson READ BY KAYLEN NAPPER
My mother tells us the Black Panthers are doing all kinds of stuff to make the world a better place for Black children.
Everyone knows where they belong here. It’s not Greenville
In Oakland, they started a free breakfast program so that poor kids can have a meal before starting their school day. Pancakes, toast, eggs, fruit: we watch the kids eat happily, sing songs about how proud they are to be Black. We sing the song along with them stand on the bases of lampposts and scream, Say it loud: I’m Black and I’m proud until my mother hollers from the window, Get down before you break your neck.
I still don’t know what it is that would make people want to get along.
but it’s not diamond sidewalks either.
Maybe no one does. Angela Davis smiles, gap-toothed and beautiful, raises her fist in the air says, Power to the people, looks out from the television directly into my eyes.
I don’t understand the revolution. In Bushwick, there’s a street we can’t cross called Wyckoff Avenue. White people live on the other side. Once a boy from my block got beat up for walking over there. Once there were four white families on our block but they all moved away except for the old lady who lives by the tree. Some days, she brings out cookies tells us stories of the old neighborhood when everyone was German or Irish and even some Italians down by Wilson Avenue. All kinds of people, she says. And the cookies are too good for me to say, Except us.
“Helium” BY Rudy Francisco READ BY NISA GABBIDON
When you are the only black man in the whole neighborhood, your skin is that one friend who meets everyone before you do. It wears a wife beater and house shoes, it knocks over the neighbor's mailbox, it cusses in front of the kids and plays the music too loud, but you actually don't do any of those things. It's 7 PM. It's Wednesday and you are just walking home.
Final Op-ed for the new york times BY JOHN LEWIS READ BY SANAA WHITE
Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call “good trouble”, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it. You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others. Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring. When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.
“I Saw Emmett Till At the Grocery STore”
BY Eve L. Ewing READ BY MARQUIS SANDERS
looking over the plums, one by one lifting each to his eyes and turning it slowly, a little earth, checking the smooth skin for pockmarks and rot, or signs of unkind days or people, then sliding them gently into the plastic. whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire before realizing the danger of bruising and lifting them back out, cradling them in the crook of his elbow until something harder could take that bottom space. I knew him from his hat, one of those fine porkpie numbers they used to sell on Roosevelt Road. it had lost its feather but he had carefully folded a dollar bill and slid it between the ribbon and the felt and it stood at attention. he wore his money. upright and strong, he was already to the checkout by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand, looked at me quizzically for a moment before remembering my face. he smiled. well hello young lady hello, so chilly today should have worn my warm coat like you yes so cool for August in Chicago how are things going for you oh he sighed and put the candy on the belt it goes, it goes.
Ode to the only Black kid in class BY CLINT SMITH READ BY LILLIE BLACKMON
You, it seems, are the manifestation of several lifetimes of toil. Brown v. Board in flesh. Most days the classroom feels like an antechamber. You are deemed expert on all things Morrison, King, Malcolm, Rosa. Hell, weren’t you sitting on that bus, too? You are everybody’s best friend until you are not. Hip-hop lyricologist. Presumed athlete. Free & Reduced sideshow. Exception and caricature. Too black and too white all at once. If you are successful it is because of affirmative action. If you fail it is because you were destined to. You are invisible until they turn on the Friday night lights. Here you are star before they render you asteroid. Before they watch you turn to dust.
“Revolution,” Brown Girl Dreaming BY Jacqueline Woodson READ BY ARMANI WILKINS
Don’t wait for your school to teach you, my uncle says, About the revolution. It’s happening in the streets. He’s been out of jail for more than a year now and his hair is in an afro again, gently moving in the wind as we head to the park, him holding tight to my hand even when we’re not crossing Knickerbocker Avenue, even now when I’m too old for hand holding and the like. The revolution is when Shirley Chisholm ran for president and the rest of the world tried to imagine a Black woman in the White House. When I hear the word revolution I think of the carousel with all those beautiful horses going around as though they’ll never stop and me choosing the purple one each time, climbing up onto it and reaching for the golden ring, as soft music plays. The revolution is always going to be happening. I want to write this down, that the revolution is like a merry-go-round, history always being made somewhere. And maybe for a short time, we’re a part of that history. And then the ride stops and our turn is over. We walk slow toward the park where I can already see the big swings, empty and waiting for me. And after I write it down, maybe I’ll end it this way: My name is Jacqueline Woodson and I am ready for the ride.
Commencement Speech at TSU
BY OPRAH READ BY CAYCE WESTBROOKS
People ask, what's the secret to my success? It's because I lean into His grace because life is always talking to us. And this is what I do know. When you tap into what it's trying to tell you, when you can get yourself quiet enough to listen, I mean, really listen, you can begin to distill the still small voice, which is always representing the truth of you from the noise of the world. And you can start to recognize when it comes your way. You can learn to make distinctions, to connect, to dig a little deeper. You'll be able to find your own voice within the still small voice. You'll begin to know your own heart and figure out what matters most when you can listen to the still, small voice. Every right move I've made has come from listening deeply and following that still, small voice, aligning myself with its power, with the source of power, so that when I walk into a room just as cool as you please and the fellas is either stand or fall down on their knees and they say, that's a phenomenal woman. And when I walk into that room, I come as one. But I stand as 10,000 because everybody that's ever come before me walks into that room with me. My great, great grandfather, Constantine Winfrey, born an enslaved man and couldn't write or spell his name, but 10 years after the Emancipation Proclamation had learned to read and had picked 10,000 bales of cotton in exchange for 80 acres of land and became the first person in my American lineage to own his own property. “I come as one. I stand as 10,000” has been my mantra for power because for so many of my earlier years when I was the only—I was the only woman, I was the only person of color, the one nobody expected to be in the room, at the table, on the anchor desk co-anchoring the news here in Nashville in 1975, walking into boardrooms in the '80s negotiating deals to OWN my own show, not just do the show, but to make as much money from it as they were going to make off of me. And at no time did I ever feel out of place, or not enough, or inadequate, or an imposter. Do not let the world make an imposter syndrome out of you. Why? Because I knew who I was. And more importantly, I knew whose I was. I didn't know the future, but I knew who was in charge of the future. And my job, just as your job is, to align with God's dream for you. And my prayer was always, use me. Use me, God. Show me how and who you need me to be because this is what I will tell you, God can dream a bigger dream for you than you could ever imagine for yourself. I am living testimony of a lining and living history. And I leave you with this. You have been prayed for and paid for not just tuition, but paid for through the sacrifices through the daily aggressions, through these discriminations, the locked doors, the back doors, the barriers broken down, through the humiliations, working two and three jobs just trying to make ends meet and getting you a little money, so you can have something to spend in college. Every family member from generations back who helped make this day possible, you owe them a rising. And your job is to come on up to the rising, to meet the rising of your life, and know that your crown has been paid for. Put it on your head and wear it. Congratulations.
Our 2024 Featured Businesses Ms. Jana’s Candy Ms. Jana’s Candy was established in 2018 with just three pots and three candy thermometers. Ms. Jana, a first-generation candy maker, took her recipes and her Marine Corp Veteran son, Ken, and quickly became a go-to location in nearby Aurora. In 2023, Ms. Jana’s Candy was even inducted to the highly sought-after “Illinois Made” program. We’re excited to offer their chocolate caramel cups as a featured treat today!
El Famous Burrito Kevin Walker is the proud owner of El Famous Burrito Lombard and El Famous Burrito Glendale Heights. Devoted to showcasing the narrative of Mexican flavors, El Famous Burrito has offered an inclusive menu and space to the Chicagoland community for almost 40 years. Enjoy the variety of traditional fast-casual menu items and their creatively reinterpreted ‘specials.’
Extract Juicery Wheaton Kevin Walker is also the “Chief Visionary” at Extract Juicery in downtown Wheaton. Extract Juicery’s mission is to provide people with access to incredible products that leave them feeling light, refreshed, yet satisfied in body and mind, knowing that what they're putting into their bodies is nourishment provided by nature.
WHEATON
Xpressive mocha body butter café Xpressive Mocha focuses on natural, plant-based skincare infused with coffee and tea to nurture your skin. With a physical shop located in booth C4 of Painted Tree in Bloomingdale, Xpressive Mocha also offers an online shopping experience at xpressivemocha.com. One lucky raffle winner will receive a $25 gift card to this local Black-owned business!
Our 2024 FEATURED BUSINESSES Bookstore of Glen Ellyn Since 1960, we have been your proudly independent neighborhood bookstore in Glen Ellyn, IL, committed to providing excellent customer service and a wide range of books for all readers. Stop by to shop in-person in downtown Glen Ellyn, or shop online at bookstoreofge.com/browse!
The african american read-in “It is important for all of us to see ourselves in books.” – Dr. Jerrie Cobb Scott, founder of the African American Read-In The National African American Read-In (AARI) is a groundbreaking effort to encourage communities to read together, centering African American books and authors. It was established in 1990 by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month. This initiative has reached more than 6 million participants around the world. The Elliott Library and Media Center at Glenbard West High School is proud to be one of over 300 schools in the nation who join in to commemorate Black letters in this annual celebration. For a more comprehensive list of recommended titles and readings, please visit NCTE’s website or scan the QR code below. Thank you for joining us today!