Six years ago, Karida L. Brown was digging through academic archives and came across a 1919 request for contributions to a magazine for Black children called The Brownies’ Book. She instantly fell down a rabbit hole in the Library of Congress to find every issue ever published.
Charly Palmer, who was courting Brown at the time, mused in an email about what she might include in a children’s book if she were ever to write one. She mentioned revisiting The Brownies’ Book for the current generation.
The Atlanta couple’s passion project was published earlier this month.
“The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families” (Chronicle Books, $40) pays homage to the first magazine published for Black American children by historian, sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The coffee-table book is a beautifully curated collection by Brown, an Emory University sociology professor, and now-husband Palmer, a visual artist. It weaves together short stories, games, comic strips, open letters, essays, poems, portraits and mixed-media artwork from 50 Black writers and artists.
On Tuesday, Brown and Palmer will host a conversation with Ida Harris, one of the collection’s contributors, followed by a book signing at Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue Research Library. The free event will also be livestreamed on Facebook.
“It’s a love letter to Black families,” Palmer said. “We want Black families to know they are loved. This stuff is tear-jerking and full of laughter, and there’s a cause that’s bigger than us. We just had to figure out how to pull it all together.”
Credit: Courtesy of Chronicle Books
Credit: Courtesy of Chronicle Books
The original Brownies’ Book was published for 18 months starting in 1920 as a spinoff to the NAACP magazine The Crisis. It was an effort to celebrate Black joy and achievement and to show Black youth, who Du Bois referred to as “children of the sun,” that they were loved.
The children’s periodical is where Langston Hughes, a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, published his earliest poetry, short stories and plays when he was just 20. Brown and Palmer include his works in their book.
“His writing is so beautiful, and it flows in a natural way,” said Palmer, who designed the cover art for John Legend’s “Bigger Love” album. “With everything he’s done, we still don’t know him. This man still to this day is very intriguing.”
Brown recalls her initial reaction back in 2017 when she was doing research for “The Sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line” and found Du Bois’ letters about the children’s magazine.
Credit: Courtesy of Chronicle Books
Credit: Courtesy of Chronicle Books
“I tore through Du Bois’ archive,” Brown said. “I wanted to find all of the little nuggets. It was like a call-and-response. It was so beautiful. It brought me to tears. It gave me a new sense of purpose as a scholar to understand that my mission must be bigger.”
Palmer said her determination and motivation were apparent.
“When Karida puts on her boss hat, she really is in charge, and she can really be tough. This was a labor of love for both of us. ... We saw this as a commitment to our families,” he said. “This was an opportunity to do something that was passionate to both of us.”
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Palmer, who is known for his colorful acrylic paintings, announced their effort on “The New Brownies’ Book” when he was commissioned to do a Time magazine cover in June 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
Like Du Bois, the couple put out a call to friends and colleagues asking them to share their work for a book.
Divided into 10 chapters, “The New Brownies’ Book” includes words from Damon Young, Frank X Walker, Alice Faye Duncan and Ntozake Shange and original art by Keef Cross, Tokie Rome-Taylor, Jamaal Barber, Danny Simmons and Fabian Williams.
The book also includes contributions from editorial fellows at Nashville’s Fisk University, Du Bois’ alma mater. Palmer, who spent a year at Fisk as artist-in-residence in 2021 while his wife headed the HBCU’s John Lewis Center for Social Justice, recruited his apprentice, Demetri Burke, as both a writer and illustrator.
“There was an instant response, and the stuff that we got was magical,” Palmer said. “These people really went in and surprised us with what they did. It mattered to them, and it was obvious from the efforts that they put into it.”
Credit: Courtesy of Chronicle Books
Credit: Courtesy of Chronicle Books
Brown and Palmer were interested in a broad range of contributors.
“We selected our folks who we know just love Black folks,” she said. “We could’ve totally gone with just celebrities, but we wanted folks who said Black from their chest.”
Both Brown and Palmer said they feel more pride about this book than any project they’ve ever worked on.
Crediting their teamwork as the foundation for bringing their vision to life, the couple hopes the years they spent to complete it will spark more collaborations and inspire young people to pursue their goals.
“We want the book on the coffee table of every Black family across the country and around the world,” Brown said. “This is not just a book. It’s a movement, a program and an elevator to bring everybody up. We’re just shepherds of tradition.”
EVENT PREVIEW
“The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families”
Karida L. Brown and Charly Palmer in conversation with Ida Harris
7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 24. Free. Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave. NE, Atlanta. 404-613-4001, charisbooksandmore.com.
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