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BOOK CLUB AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH

EST. 2018

 
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SUPPORT

SUPPORT BBR NOLA

JOIN

Join us today and become the change you want to see! Send your completed form to therese.colin@blackboysreadnola.org

SUPPORT

Support our book club by purchasing t-shirts through our partners at Clouet Street Boutique!

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Every little bit helps! 100% of your contribution goes directly toward sustaining our outreach efforts.

UPCOMING MEETS

UPCOMING MEETS

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last month

January 2023

Alice Harte Library

In our first book of the new year, we will learn about Mr. Willie Powell.  In the 1920's there was no place for Willie, or any black person, on a golf cource. It was a game for white people only, at least in America. But his enthusiasm for golf and his belief in what he knew to be right drove Willie Powell to change that, and to change minds.

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this month

February 2023

Alice Harte Library

 From his childhood in Jamaica to his youth in the Bronx, Laban Carrick Hill's book tells how Kool Herc came to be a DJ, how kids in gangs stopped fighting in order to breakdance, and how the music he invented went on to define a culture and transform the world. DJ Wild Wayne of Q93 will be our guest speaker!

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next month

March 2023

Alice Harte Library

This month we are luck enough to have the author speak and read with us! Author Murlonda Janelle believes a good book should be carried with you everywhere, even on vacation. In this book, our main character wants to teach what he learned about the game of soccer to the Angels. In the end he learns that instead of trying to copy how the professionals play, it's always best to just be yourself.

OUR WORK

A little about us

We are a family of five. Therese' (myself), My husband Justin and our three boys Jordan, Dylan, and Aiden. We had been living in England up until May of 2018. Being in Europe really made our three boys more receptive to newer experiences. Even better than that, it made them more conscious of their blackness (In a good way). Growing up in a predominantly black city such as New Orleans, it’s easy to take genuinely black experiences for granted. Being outside of the south, and more so, out of America, having genuine exposure to the diaspora, really made the boys yearn for a re-connection with their people. They all coped in different ways. Dylan’s outlet was reading. So summer 2018 arrives and Dylan informs us that he plans to read 85 books before summers end. (Really?) I convinced him to reel it back some. Partly for selfish reasons as I knew I couldn’t bear sitting through that many books. So eventually we agreed on 60 books with a gift at 20 book intervals. Incremental increases were established: 20 books=small gift, 40 books=medium gift and 60 books=large gift. All gifts of his choosing once the milestones were met. He kept reading and we kept buying. (Books and gifts) He completed his 60th book around the beginning of August. What made this experience unique however, was that it presented us the opportunity to seek out more and more books with black authors and black protagonists, all the while sharing on social media the gems we were finding in these black books. This may come as a surprise to some of you readers, but people of African descent were represented in a very positive light in the assigned curriculum in the English School System. I mention this because we received his summer required reading for the school he’d be attending upon our return to the states. It floored us. You would think in a predominantly black city and in an almost all black school we would see ourselves represented and If so, represented well. Hardly the case! He was assigned books about white female babysitters (you know the one) and another that was being assigned since I was his age. Ridiculous! And when black males lose interest in school over time, everyone is looking around confused. Here is why. Black people and black males in particular need representation and someone they can relate and aspire to. We had been reading, posting, and reviewing great books all summer at this point, so we said “Why not us?” Let’s step up and fill the void left by our school systems. Our boys deserve it and so much more.

 

View our guest blog post for peachtree online here!

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ABOUT US
GALLERY
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FIND US

P.O. BOX (coming soon)

New Orleans, LA 70131

 

therese.colin@blackboysreadnola.org


Tel: 504-481-5718

OPENING HOURS:

 

Mon - Fri: 9am - 5pm

​​Saturday: 8am - 7pm

​Sunday: Closed

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