Black History Month

"Never give up if your heart and your head tell you are right. People can disappoint you, but your heart and your head will never. Make them your best friends."

Sisi, Efe, and Ama are from Nigeria, and Joyce is from South Sudan by way of Nigeria. The women work and live together as sex workers in Antwerp, Belgium. Despite their close working proximity they are not friends until tragedy strikes and, in the face of true horror, they learn that they must stand together or die alone.

We study Chika Unigwe's 'On Black Sisters' Street' on our English Literature degree as part of the final year module 'What Now? What Next?', an exploration of contemporary literature.

"The future was sunset; the past was something to leave behind. And if it didn't stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out."

Although Sethe now lives as a free woman in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1837, she is held prisoner by memories of the trauma of her life as a slave. To live in the present, Sethe must reckon with the irreconcilable horrors of her past, revealing to us her experiences living as an enslaved woman in pre-Civil War Kentucky.

We read Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' as part of our English Literature degree on the module 'American Radicals: Outside of the Canon'.

Okonkwo is the beloved leader of the 'Ibo' clan of Umuofia. He is a feared warrior and a local wrestling champion, with a violent manner and tortured soul, but crucially his followers trust him. Then one day the Christian missionaries arrive and things will never be the same again...

We read Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' on our English Literature degree as part of the first year module 'Introduction to Literary Studies 2'.

"First learning, then proving I'd learned. Knowing and using the knowledge aren't the same thing."

Lilith awakes in a strange stasis pod, only to discover that she has been rescued from an Earth ruined by war by an alien species of intergalactic genetic traders known as the Oankali. They hope to ensure the survival of their kind by mating with humans like Lilith to produce a new species of Oankali/Human hybrids. Could this provide the key to humanity's survival as well? And if so, will the new generation really even be human at all...?

We read Octavia Butler's 'Dawn' on our degree in English Literature as part of the module 'Science Fiction for Survival'.

The following books are on display in our library as part of Black History Month:

• The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo
• Wish We Knew What to Say: Talking with Children About Race, by Pragya Agarwal
• Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century, by Kehinde Andrews
• Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women, edited by Mia Bay
• Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life, edited by Ruha Benjamin
• Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman
• Black Girls Rock! Owning Our Magic, Rocking Our Truth, edited by Beverly Bond
• The Lemonade Reader: Beyoncé, Black Feminism and Spirituality, edited by Kinitra D. Brooks
• Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler
• New Kid, by Jerry Craft
• Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance, edited by Angela Y Davis
• The Shoulders We Stand On: How Black and Brown people fought for change in the United Kingdom, by Preeti Dhillon
• Black Teacher, by Beryl Gilroy
• There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, by Paul Gilroy
• Change Sings: A Children's Anthem, by Amanda Gorman
• Who Am I, Again?, by Lenny Henry
• If My Words Had Wings, by Danielle Jawando
• How Long 'Til Black Future Month?, by NK Jemisin
• Eight Pieces of Silva, by Patrice Lawrence
• Our Story Starts in Africa, by Patrice Lawrence
• Love Offers No Safety: Nigeria's Queer Men Speak, edited by Olumide F Makanjuola, Jude Dibia
• Black Issues in the Therapeutic Process, by Isha McKenzie-Mavinga
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison
• A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis, by Vanessa Nakate
• Shuri: The Search for Black Panther, by Nnedi Okorafor
• Black History for Every Day of the Year, by David Olusoga, Kemi Olusoga, Yinka Olusoga
• A Black Boy at Eton, by Dillibe Onyeama
• Filigree: Contemporary Black British Poetry, edited by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
• Black Pupils Matter: Our Experience of the English Education System 1950-2000, by Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce
• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
• Dispatches from the Diaspora: From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter, by Gary Younge
• Refugee Boy, by Benjamin Zephaniah