February is Black History and Futures Month, dedicated to honouring the rich tapestry of Black identity, experience, culture, from the annals of history in all of its complex layers, to the present and future potential of a vibrant diaspora.
From museum studies to birding, here are five reads that delve into the less-examined corners of narratives centering Black stories.
CULTURE
Making History: Visual Arts and Blackness in Canada, edited by by Julie Crooks, Dominique Fontaine, and Silvia Forni (UBC Press)
From the minds of Julie Crooks (head of the Department of Arts, Global Africa, and the Diaspora at the Art Gallery of Ontario), Dominique Fontaine (curator and founding director of aposteriori, a non-profit curatorial platform), and Silvia Forni (senior curator for Global Africa at the Royal Ontario Museum; associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto) comes a beautifully illustrated collection examining Black history and art against the backdrop of Canadian culture.
Through essays supplemented by poems, artist statements, and carefully chosen art portfolios, Making History features artists and art world figures that have broken and continue to break boundaries in the many ways they engage with Black aesthetics. Its sharply written pieces do not shy away from the nuances and complexity of African and diasporic experiences — an investigation further strengthened by the editors’ formidable museological backgrounds and the unique role this plays in how each of them are positioned in the cultural milieu.
A central question sits at the heart of this exploration: How do we define and explore the current dynamic between institutions, artists, and audiences? Making History asks the necessary questions around this “cultural emergency in which we are living, where museums are rethinking and rewriting the stories of their collections,” yet it also offers answers, alternatives, and ways of resistance that move us away from hegemony and towards the multiplicity required to engineer transformative change.
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PERSONAL
Black Again: Losing and Reclaiming My Racial Identity by LaTonya Summers (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, distributed by UBC Press)
Now a mental health counselor and author, LaTonya Summers was only six years old when she first found herself trying to be “more white.” This experience has followed her ever since, influencing everything from her music and fashion preferences to her way of speaking and the values she internalized as she was growing up.
“I was driven by the belief,” she writes in Black Again, “that if I wanted to go somewhere I’d need to be something other than Black.”
Now fully embracing the Afrocentric values that have “sustained her and her family better than any white picket fence ever could,” LaTonya looks back at a childhood spent in foster care and brings us along on a journey that takes her to her current life as both a professor and a mother.
Thoughtful and layered, Black Again is an unforgettable account of what it means to challenge internalized racism and fight for the self that the world once taught you to deny.
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Dare to Bird: Exploring the Joy and Healing Power of Birds by Melissa Hafting (Rocky Mountain Books)
In this powerful ode to photography and the healing power of birds, Melissa Hafting shares some of her most stunning bird images from the continental United States, Hawaii, and Canada. A respected birder, photographer, and mentor, Melissa’s love for birding began with its capacity to help her relationship with mental health, enabling her to cope with grief and loss and bringing both joy and meaningful connections to her life. Today, she runs the BC Young Birders Program, which aims to bring together youth of all races, sexual orientations, and genders to look at birds in the natural world and champion their conservation.
Vivid and heartfelt, Dare to Bird captures this passion about creating space for BIPOC and LGBTQ2+ birders through youth outreach and honest discussions of the racism and sexism Melissa herself has faced in her birding journey — all while paying homage to the eco-travel advocates, conservationists, rare bird enthusiasts, and ethical wildlife viewing practitioners that stand as both pillars and participants in the rich birding community.
Available April 2024!
TRUE CRIME
Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder That Shocked Toronto by Carolyn Whitzman (UBC Press)
October 6, 1894. Autumn. Approaching in the dark, a figure rings the doorbell of a well-to-do Parkdale home and shoots Frank Westwood right at the doorway.
Six weeks later, the investigation points all fingers to Clara Ford, an enigmatic Black tailor and single mother known for her impeccable work ethic and resolute personality — as well as for wearing men’s attire. Once the neighbour of the murder victim, this connection and the supposed details of Clara’s arrest begin to strain at the seams when she testifies that she was coerced by Toronto police into a false confession.
Clara was the first woman — and only the second person — to testify on her own behalf in a Canadian trial.
“[Carolyn] Whitzman is objective in her research and scrupulous in her analyses (even in speculating about motives, character, relationships, and psychologies),” writes George Elliott Clarke, professor of African-Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto. “Yet she is also righteously sympathetic to the travails of Clara Ford, a single, Black, working-class mom, subjected to all the racist, sexist, and elitist hypocrisy of Toronto the Good, a Victorian-era bastion of white supremacy, British imperialism, and top-hatted patriarchy.”
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YOUNG READERS
Anna Carries Water by Olive Senior, illustrated by Laura James (Tradewind Books)
Anna was so happy. She carried water on her head. She didn’t spill a drop. She didn’t wet her clothes.
This charming and poetic picture book follows young Anna in her daily trips to fetch water from the local spring. Faced with doubt when she finds herself unable to carry the water on her head like her older siblings, Anna grows into the beating heart of this “gentle story about growing up” from Commonwealth Prize-winning author Olive Senior. Her eventual triumph will delight young readers — and remind them that with enough courage and determination comes a world of endless possibilities and successes.
Set amidst the beauty of Jamaica, “[Laura] James’s stunning illustrations capture the beauty and colour of the Jamaican landscape,” describes Quill & Quire, “as well as the warmth of Anna’s family.”
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