View Scenes from the UC African-American Read-in

UC's Center for Access and Transition hosts another read-in Feb. 6, featuring poet and author Crystal Wilkinson.

UC faculty, librarians, staff and an award-winning student poet delighted a Feb. 4 audience in MainStreet Cinema as all took part in the nation’s 19th annual African-American Read-in.

Event organizer Angela Gooden, head of the UC Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library, and emcee Mark Gooden, associate professor of educational studies and leadership, led the event in MainStreet Cinema as speakers read two-minute excerpts from books authored by African-Americans.

Darwin Henderson, associate professor of teacher education, UC College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH), was first to share his gift of storytelling as he read from Virginia Hamilton’s “The Peculiar Such Thing.” The story is published in her collection of Black American folktales, The People Could Fly. Hamilton was an award-winning writer for children and young adults. Henderson is the former chair of a national panel that selects outstanding African-American authors and illustrators for the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King Book Award. He has devoted his career to promoting literature and accompanying artwork that positively portrays the diversity of children and teenagers.

First-Year Experience (FYE) Librarian James Krusling read from Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope – Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

Erica Dawson, a first-year doctoral student doctoral student and Elliston Fellow in Poetry, read “Bees in the Attic,” from her published collection of poetry,

“Big-Eyed Afraid,” which was awarded the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize.

Dawson is a doctoral student in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences.

Barb Macke, associate librarian, emotionally recalled being the first person in her family to go to college as she read from Lucille Clifton’s memoir, “A Good Woman,” and from Clifton’s poem, “What the Mirror Said.”

Other readers included

Alfreda Green, library media technical assistant II, who read from Maya Angelou’s “I am a Christian.”

Doe Gavin, assistant academic director for exploratory advising, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, who read from Langson Hughes’ Let America Be America.

Roger Collins, professor of educational studies and leadership, College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services (CECH), who read a passage from Cane, by Jean Toomer

Kenneth Ghee, associate professor of psychology, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, who read a selection from his self-written, unpublished screenplay, titled, The Education of Malcolm: Black to the Future.

Frank X Walker, a Kentucky poet who now resides in Cincinnati and a writer-in-residence at Northern Kentucky University, who read two of his poems, “Death by Basketball,” and “Lil’ Kings,” in addition to a poem by Truth Thomas, “Harriet Tubman’s e-mail to Masa,” as well as  Kelly Norman Ellis’ “Raised by Women.”

June Taylor, a library associate for the Engineering Library, who read from the speech of 19th century abolitionist Soujouner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman.”

Michaele Pride, director of UC's School of Architecture and Interior Design, who read selections by acclaimed African-American poets Nikki Giovanni, Nikky Finney, Gwendolyn Brooks and Frank X Walker, Pride’s husband

Erma Fritsche, head, Library Technology Services, who read from Fences, by August Wilson.

The UC African-American read-in was sponsored by Student Activities and Leadership Development (SALD), the Department of African and African-American Studies, the Geology-Mathematics-Physics Library and MainStreet Cinema.

Sponsored nationally by the Black Caucus of the National Councils of Teachers of English and endorsed by the National Reading Association, the NCTE reports that more than one million readers representing a variety of ethnic groups have participated in past read-ins, which have yielded participation from 49 states, the West Indies and African countries.