By Williamena Kwapo | OBSERVER Staff Writer
Stories of romance, loss, incarceration, and family took center stage Sept. 13 at Sacramento’s BlkLit Book Festival, where authors and community members gathered to honor the long tradition of Black storytelling.
The inaugural one-day festival — hosted by St. HOPE and held at Underground Books and The Guild Theater — celebrated Black writers past and present. The festival highlighted the role that Black stories and books play in guiding, empowering, and preserving culture.
“We are the descendants of Toni Morrison and of James Baldwin. Those are our literary ancestors,” said Julian Newman, a native Sacramentan and author of “Beautiful Together.” “The fact that we’re here in this space is part of the resistance.”
Throughout the day, audiences also heard from authors such as Sheryl Lister, whose novels spotlight Black love and romance; actor and author Victoria Rowell; and Shaka Senghor, whose bestselling works on incarceration and redemption have drawn national attention, including multiple interviews with Oprah Winfrey.
Their conversations touched on both triumphs and barriers that Black authors face in publishing, such as the struggle to maintain authentic voices, pushback against editorial bias, and the ways literature can serve as a tool for resistance. They also stressed that stories of joy and healing are just as vital as stories of pain.
“You can only put ink on paper at that moment in which you’re willing to be completely honest,” Senghor said while discussing his new book “How to Be Free.” “And that means you’re going to have to be honest about the pain, you’re going to have to be honest about the responsibility, but you also have to be honest about the joy and the success.”
Perhaps the most historic moment of the festival was the announcement of the National Association of Black Bookstores (NAB2), a new member-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting literacy, amplifying Black voices, and preserving Black culture.
NAB2 was founded by Kevin Johnson, former Sacramento mayor and owner of Underground Books. Johnson’s inspiration for organization was his late mother, Georgia “Mother Rose” Peat West, who founded Underground Books in 2003 and passed away last December. Her bookstore stood tall even during a period of time when Black-owned bookstores plummeted.
Black-owned bookstores once flourished in the U.S., with more than 200 across the country in the mid-1990s. By 2014, only 54 remained, according to research from Troy Johnson, founder of the African American Literature Book Club. But in recent years, the tide has shifted, in part due to the 2020 racial reckoning. As of 2023, there were about 149 Black-owned bookstores nationwide.
But the resurgence of Black bookstores is about more than keeping storefronts open; it’s about the future of reading itself.
National studies show that reading rates are declining overall, with fewer adults and children reporting they read books regularly.
For African American students, literacy gaps remain. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has consistently reported lower reading scores for Black students compared to their white peers. Advocates at the festival said amplifying Black authors, bookstores, and offering stories that reflect students’ lives and spark a love of reading, is one way to push back against those trends.
“I think part of the reason we see challenges with literacy is because the stories themselves aren’t relevant to the people who are reading them,” said Sacramento State President Dr. Luke Wood, who participated in a barbershop talk with UC Davis Chancellor Dr. Gary May and Johnson. “What Black bookstores do is put that at the center of the community, and it becomes a larger community hub around education, literacy, and self-improvement for Black people.”
Local colleges in the Sacramento region, including UC Davis and Sacramento State, committed $100,000 each to support NAB2’s efforts hoping to create partnerships with the organizations for students interested in the literary field.
“I think people like to read and would like to learn to read if the stories and issues they’re reading about are about them, their issues, their families, their concerns,” May said. “If you want to improve literacy, you write about and have people read about things that are important to them.”
For attendees, that’s exactly what the BlkLit Book Festival offered: a space where their stories mattered. Where books weren’t just artifacts, but living, breathing reflections of community and where the next generation could see themselves as both readers and authors.
Johnson said this year’s festival was a reimagining of the former Black Book Festival which was created and organized by late Sac State professor Dr. David Covin. The former had also been held in the Oak Park neighborhood for several years, but stalled after the pandemic.