Black love letters

Book - 2023

In this exquisite anthology of letters and illustrations, Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson bring together a constellation of influential Black figures to write to the people, places, and moments that mean the most to them. With a foreword from John Legend and contributions from Brontez Purnell, Morgan Jerkins, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Dr. Imani Perry, among many others, Black Love Letters is an ode to a phenomenal community: a testament to the fact that where there has been pain and suffering, there has also always been immeasurable, irrepressible joy and love.

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  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • Care
  • Jamila Woods to Joycetta
  • Tembe Denton-Hurst to Her Younger Sister
  • Nadia Owusu to Her Colleagues
  • Joy-Ann Reid to Her Hair
  • Bilquisu Abdullah on Queer Love
  • Rakia Reynolds to Skai, Zoie, and Brammie
  • Akili King to Her Unborn Niece
  • Joel Castón to Dimples
  • Barbara Edelin to Ken
  • Awe
  • Morgan Jerkins to Egypt
  • Ben Crump to Thurgood Marshall
  • Lynae Vanee Bogues on Black Love
  • Dick Parsons to Jazz
  • Douglas Kearney to Black-Assed Rasp
  • Michael Eric Dyson to the Black Church
  • Imani Perry on Black Love as Grace
  • Belinda Walker to Black America
  • Jonathan Capehart to Uncle McKinley
  • Loss
  • Allisa Charles-Findley to Botham Jean
  • Jeh Charles Johnson to Mom
  • Tarana Burke to Grandma
  • Natalie Johnson to Her Namesake
  • Bill Whitaker to Dad
  • Justus Cornelius Pugh to Ancestors
  • Rhianna Jones to Dad
  • Doug Jones to Dad
  • Mahogany Browne to Erika
  • Ambivalence
  • Topaz Jones on "Worry"
  • Reverend Al Sharpton to His Grandson
  • Brianna Holt to Self
  • Jayne Allen to Blackness
  • Kwame Dawes on Fishing
  • Cole Brown to Mama Brown
  • VJ Jenkins to His Unrequited Love
  • Transformation
  • Tracey Michael Lewis-Giggetts to Louisville
  • Alexandra Elle to Self
  • Deborah Willis to Her Son
  • Brontez Purnell to Eleven-Year-Old Michael Jackson
  • Chef Roze Traore to Mom
  • Sojourner Brown to Self
  • Jenna Wortham to Inner Critic
  • Jan Menafee to Water
  • Danez Smith to Family, Alphabet Mafia, Tish 'n' nem, Jayson nem, Langston nem, and maybe you
  • Malachi Elijah to My Black Body
  • Acknowledgments
  • Credits and Permissions
  • Contributors
  • About the Editors
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Black Americans declare their love. This anthology brings together dozens of love letters by prominent Black Americans. The entries, interspersed with illustrations, address an eclectic mix of topics arranged under five categories: Care, Awe, Loss, Ambivalence, and Transformation. In their introduction, editors Brown and Johnson note the book's inspiration in the witnessing of violence directed at Black America. Reckonings with outrage and grief, they explain, remain an urgent task and a precondition of creating and sustaining loving bonds. The editors seek to create "a site for our people to come together on the deepest, strongest emotion we share" and thus open "the possibility for shared deliverance" and "carve out a space for healing, together." This aim is powerfully realized in many of the letters, which offer often poignant portrayals of where redemptive love has and might yet be found. Among the most memorable are Joy Reid's "A Love Letter to My Hair," a sensitive articulation of a hard-won sense of self-love; Morgan Jerkins' "Dear Egypt," an exploration of a lifelong passion for an ancient world; and VJ Jenkins' "Pops and Dad," an affirmation that it "is beautiful to be Black, to be a man, and to be gay." Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts' "Home: A Reckoning" is particularly thoughtful and incisive in its examination of a profound attachment, "in the best and worst ways," to Louisville, Kentucky. Most of the pieces pair personal recollections with incisive cultural commentary. The cumulative effect of these letters is to set forth a panorama of opportunities for maintaining the ties that matter most, especially in the face of a cultural milieu that continues to produce virulent forms of love's opposite. Other contributors include Nadia Owusu, Jamila Woods, Ben Crump, Eric Michael Dyson, Kwame Dawes, Jenna Wortham, and Imani Perry. A wide-ranging collection of testaments to what moves the heart. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.