Silent Book Club celebrates Black History Month
How to fight government censorship and keep information alive
In 2023, The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) at the Smithsonian launched an incredible summer reading program based on the exhibition, Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures. Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that stretches across art, music, and literature and weaves together science-fiction, history, and technology to explore the African-American experience.
The Afrofuturism reading guide was written for educators and students, but there is something for everyone on this list: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, music, memoir, comic books, and graphic novels. The featured authors include luminaries like Octavia E. Butler and W.E.B. Du Bois, contemporary authors including Nnedi Okorafor, Marlon James, and N.K. Jemisin, and cultural legends like Janelle Monáe and LeVar Burton.
As we write this, an unconstitutional dismantling of the U.S. government is underway. Federally-funded programs are under attack and public resources are being disappeared from government websites. We want to make sure that this Black History resource is preserved when Trump comes for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Smithsonian, as promised by the architects of Project 2025.
Following the guidelines published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to keep information alive in the face of government censorship, we have taken steps to archive the Afrofuturism reading list on our website and preserve the exhibition website on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. If there are public resources you care about online, we highly recommend taking action today to preserve them.
Silent Book Club receives no funding from the federal government or the venture capitalists sponsoring this coup, so we will not be silenced by sadists and billionaires. Our work to bring communities together, to fight against censorship and book bans, and to support human rights will continue. Do not despair, act. If you'd like to support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber to this newsletter or purchasing some swag at the Silent Book Shop!
Books we loved this month
Playlist for the Apocalypse, by Rita Dove
Who’s Afraid of Gender, by Judith Butler
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Harder I Fight the More I Love You, by Neko Case
Bookmarks
Book-related links and other stuff we’re into online
Daily Black History Month practices Liberation Table
Teach your child about Tuskegee Airmen with Little Lenox Takes Flight Bookshop.org
Connection Is the Antidote to ‘Stale, Ugly’ Hate Mississippi Free Press
What you can do, right now, for your trans and nonbinary friends, family, students and colleagues Medium
Make your voice heard 5Calls
American Library Association announces 2025 Youth Media Award winners ALA
100 days to commit to your creativity. Free global art project starts Feb 23 #The100DayProject
Relatedly: An incomplete list of what is and what is not writing Badreads
How to celebrate Jane Austen on her 250th birthday BBC
Lessons for the end of the world The New Yorker
Book banning documentary debuts at Sundance as US government declares book bans “a hoax” Unite Against Book Bans
Bookshop.org now has ebooks! To benefit indie book stores! Bookshop.org
SBC in the news
The sound of silence: Silent book clubs are for socialization, solitude The Freeman
Pssst… Tijdens de Silent Book Club lees je in alle rust indebuurt Rotterdam
Seoul Silent Book Club strives to create third places for avid readers The Korea Times
A Bad Time for Bars (but a Good Bar for the Times) Future Mending Radio
In search for unconventional approach, Silent Book Club takes shape Pigeon605
Texarkana woman creates Silent Book Club Texarkana Gazette
North Jersey breweries turn the page on event limits with book clubs North Jersey Media Group
Silent Book Club chapters to check out in the Charlotte area Axios
Jazz, coffee, books: This blind date provides sweet escape for introverts Baylor Lariat
Find the SBC chapter for you
Find a local chapter near you, or join a virtual meetup.
Silent Book Club is a proud partner of Unite Against Book Bans. We stand with the 71% majority of American voters who oppose efforts to remove books from public libraries.
