Book Reviews
Book Review: “Dear Black Girls: How to Be True to You” by A’Ja Wilson
The envelope on the table is addressed to you. It caught your attention because — who, besides politicians, utilities, and creditors sends anything in the mail these days? Still, it was a nice surprise, no matter what, like a throwback or something. And like the new book, “Dear Black Girls” by A’Ja Wilson, every letter means something.

c.2024, Moment of Life Books /Flatiron Books
$24.99
192 pages
Photo Caption: Courtesy of A’Ja Wilson
The envelope on the table is addressed to you.
It caught your attention because — who, besides politicians, utilities, and creditors sends anything in the mail these days? Still, it was a nice surprise, no matter what, like a throwback or something. And like the new book, “Dear Black Girls” by A’Ja Wilson, every letter means something.
From the time she was born until she was in fourth or fifth grade, A’Ja Wilson lived in a bubble. She didn’t know it; she was only a kid, just being herself with no worries. And then, right before one of her best friends was having a birthday party, Wilson learned that the girl’s dad “really [didn’t] like Black people.” Those few words shook Wilson’s dad, they made her mother quietly angry, and they made Wilson doubt herself for many years.
It was her first reminder: “You’re a girl.
Oh! And you’re a Black girl.
Alright, good luck!”
With the help of her parents and her beloved grandmother, Wilson healed but she never forgot. She made sure to know her roots and her family’s story. She was dyslexic, so she struggled, tried to fit in, and grew taller than most boys, which didn’t help her self-esteem. Neither did the fact that at almost every point in her life, the color of her skin mattered in ways that it shouldn’t have mattered. That included her activity on a basketball court.
Wilson was a young teen when her father first threw her a ball and she hated it, but by the time she graduated from high school, she’d found her way. She’d developed a good “Nonsense Detector.” She got some therapy (“Ain’t no shame in it.”); she learned that when she did her best, there were still going to be haters; and she always remembered to be herself and to be a light for others.
Remember, she says, “You don’t have to be an WNBA player or a politician or a celebrity to have an impact on someone.”
So, will you learn a thing or two by reading “Dear Black Girls”?
Yes and no. In her short introduction, author A’Ja Wilson says that this “is not a self-help book,” and that it’s just “a diary of somebody… who looks like you…” Eh, that’s nothing new but despite her protests, “Dear Black Girls” is helpful. You just have to be ready for it.
That’s not hard; Wilson, a two-time WNBA MVP tells her story with a flair for fun. She even tells the sad tales with exuberance, subtly letting readers know that it’s okay, she’s okay, and it’s all just part of her story. Her voice lets you know how much she enjoys life, even when she has tough things to deal with. It’s like hearing encouragement from the top bunk, or getting straight talk from a mentor.
While it might seem to be a book for teenagers only, “Dear Black Girls” would also be a great resource for younger adults. Take a look, see if it doesn’t get your stamp of approval.
Arts and Culture
BOOK REVIEW: On Love
King entered college at age fifteen and after graduation, he was named associate pastor at his father’s church. At age twenty-five, he became the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. In late 1956, he was apprehended for his part in the bus boycott there, his first of many arrests for non-violent protests and activism for Civil Rights. But when asked if those things were what he hoped he’d be honored for in years to come, King said he wanted to be remembered as “’someone who tried to love somebody.’”

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Author: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., c.2024, Harper Collins, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, $18.99
Turn the volume up, please.
You need it louder because this is something you’ve been waiting to hear. You need to listen very closely; these words mean a great deal to you, and they might change your life. As in the new book, “On Love” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the message beneath the message is the most important.
As the grandson and great-grandson of pastors and the son of the senior pastor at Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, it may seem as though young Martin Luther King, Jr., born in 1929, already had his life set.
King entered college at age fifteen and after graduation, he was named associate pastor at his father’s church. At age twenty-five, he became the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. In late 1956, he was apprehended for his part in the bus boycott there, his first of many arrests for non-violent protests and activism for Civil Rights.
But when asked if those things were what he hoped he’d be honored for in years to come, King said he wanted to be remembered as “’someone who tried to love somebody.’”
His words, essays, letters, and speeches reflect that desire.
In a 1955 sermon in Montgomery, he used a parable to explain why White people needed love to gain compassion. In 1956, he wrote about the bombing of his home, telling his readers that no retaliation was needed, that to “confront the problem with love” was the righteous and better thing to do.
Later that year, he said, “I want you to love our enemies… Love them and let them know you love them.” And in November, 1956, he said, “If you have not love, it means nothing.”
“Love is the greatest force in all the world,” he said in 1962.
He wrote a book on the subject, Strength to Love, in 1963.
In 1967, just months before his assassination, he said that “power at its best is love.”
When we talk about Dr. King’s life and his legacy, so much focus is put on his work on behalf of Civil Rights and equality that it’s easy to lose sight of the thing which he felt was more important. In “On Love,” any omission is rectified nicely.
This book, “excerpted to highlight the material where King specifically addressed the topic of love,” is full of pleasant surprises, words with impact, and thought provokers. King’s speeches hammered home a need to love one’s enemies, woven into messages of gentle resistance and strength. He explained the different “levels” of love in a way that makes sense when related to equality and justice. The bits and pieces collected here will linger in reader’s minds, poking and prodding and reminding.
If your shelves are full of books about Dr. King, know that this is a unique one, and it’s perfect for our times, now. Don’t race through it; instead, savor what you’ll read and keep it close. “On Love” is a book you’ll want to turn to, often.
Activism
‘Resist’ a Look at Black Activism in U.S. Through the Eyes of a Native Nigerian
In 1995, after she and her brothers traveled from their native Nigeria to join their mother at her new home in the South Bronx, young Omokha’s eyes were opened. She quickly understood that the color of her skin – which was “synonymous with endless striving and a pursuit of excellence” in Nigeria – was “so problematic in America.”

By Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez
Throughout history, when decisions were needed, the answer has often been “no.”
‘No,’ certain people don’t get the same education as others. ‘No,’ there is no such thing as equality. ‘No,’ voting can be denied and ‘no,’ the laws are different, depending on the color of one’s skin. And in the new book, “Resist!” by Rita Omokha, ‘no,’ there is not an obedient acceptance of those things.
In 1995, after she and her brothers traveled from their native Nigeria to join their mother at her new home in the South Bronx, young Omokha’s eyes were opened. She quickly understood that the color of her skin – which was “synonymous with endless striving and a pursuit of excellence” in Nigeria – was “so problematic in America.”
That became a bigger matter to Omokha later, 15 years after her brother was deported: she “saw” him in George Floyd, and it shook her. Troubled, she traveled to America on a “pilgrimage for understanding [her] Blackness…” She began to think about the “Black young people across America” who hadn’t been or wouldn’t be quiet about racism any longer.
She starts this collection of stories with Ella Josephine Baker, whose parents and grandparents modeled activism and who, because of her own student activism, would be “crowned the mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” Baker, in fact, was the woman who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, in 1960.
Nine teenagers, known as the Scottsboro Nine were wrongly arrested for raping two white women in 1931 and were all released, thanks to the determination of white lawyer-allies who were affiliated with the International Labor Defense and the outrage of students on campuses around America.
Students refused to let a “Gentleman’s Agreement” pass when it came to sports and equality in 1940. Barbara Johns demanded equal education under the law in Virginia in 1951. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in 1966. And after Trayvon Martin (2012) and George Floyd (2020) were killed, students used the internet as a new form of fighting for justice.
No doubt, by now, you’ve read a lot of books about activism. There are many of them out there, and they’re pretty hard to miss. With that in mind, there are reasons not to miss “Resist!”
You’ll find the main one by looking between the lines and in each chapter’s opening.
There, Omokha weaves her personal story in with that of activists at different times through the decades, matching her experiences with history and making the whole timeline even more relevant.
In doing so, the point of view she offers – that of a woman who wasn’t totally raised in an atmosphere filled with racism, who wasn’t immersed in it her whole life – lets these historical accounts land with more impact.
This book is for people who love history or a good, short biography, but it’s also excellent reading for anyone who sees a need for protest or action and questions the status quo. If that’s the case, then “Resist!” may be the answer.
“Resist! How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America” by Rita Omokha, c.2024, St. Martin’s Press. $29.00
Black History
Book Review: In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World
It’s a tale of heroes: the Maroons, who created communities in unwanted swampland, and welcomed escaped slaves into their midst; Sarah Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus”; Marème Diarra, who walked more than 2000 miles from Sudan to Senegal with her children to escape slavery; enslaved farmers and horticulturists; and everyday people who still talk about slavery and what the institution left behind.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Ever since you learned how it happened you couldn’t get it out of your mind.
People, packed like pencils in a box, tightly next to each other, one by one by one, tier after tier. They couldn’t sit up, couldn’t roll over or scratch an itch or keep themselves clean on a ship that took them from one terrible thing to another. And in the new book “In Slavery’s Wake,” essays by various contributors, you’ll see what trailed in waves behind those vessels.
You don’t need to be told about the horrors of slavery. You’ve grown up knowing about it, reading about it, thinking about everything that’s happened because of it in the past four hundred years. And so have others: in 2014, a committee made of “key staff from several world museums” gathered to discuss “telling the story of racial slavery and colonialism as a world system…” so that together, they could implement a “ten-year road map to expand… our practices of truth telling…”
Here, the effects of slavery are compared to the waves left by a moving ship, a wake the story of which some have tried over time to diminish.
It’s a tale filled with irony. Says one contributor, early American Colonists held enslaved people but believed that King George had “unjustly enslaved” the colonists.
It’s the story of a British company that crafted shackles and cuffs and that still sells handcuffs “used worldwide by police and militaries” today.
It’s a tale of heroes: the Maroons, who created communities in unwanted swampland, and welcomed escaped slaves into their midst; Sarah Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus”; Marème Diarra, who walked more than 2000 miles from Sudan to Senegal with her children to escape slavery; enslaved farmers and horticulturists; and everyday people who still talk about slavery and what the institution left behind.
Today, discussions about cooperation and diversity remain essential.
Says one essayist, “… embracing a view of history with a more expansive definition of archives in all their forms must be fostered in all societies.”
Unless you’ve been completely unaware and haven’t been paying attention for the past 150 years, a great deal of what you’ll read inside “In Slavery’s Wake” is information you already knew and images you’ve already seen.
Look again, though, because this comprehensive book isn’t just about America and its history. It’s about slavery, worldwide, yesterday and today.
Casual readers – non-historians especially – will, in fact, be surprised to learn, then, about slavery on other continents, how Africans left their legacies in places far from home, and how the “wake” they left changed the worlds of agriculture, music, and culture. Tales of individual people round out the narrative, in legends that melt into the stories of others and present new heroes, activists, resisters, allies, and tales that are inspirational and thrilling.
This book is sometimes a difficult read and is probably best consumed in small bites that can be considered with great care to appreciate fully. Start “In Slavery’s Wake,” though, and you won’t be able to get it out of your mind.
Edited by Paul Gardullo, Johanna Obenda, and Anthony Bogues, Author: Various Contributors, c.2024, Smithsonian Books, $39.95
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