2024 Festival

Join us at the Schomburg Literary Festival for the keynote conversation with award-winning author and journalist Donovan X. Ramsey—along with book talks and workshops featuring Diane Richardson, director of the storied Harlem Writers Guild, Elizabeth Acevedo, B. Michael, Jonell Joshua, The Moth, and more. 2024 marks its sixth year and will reconvene communities of book lovers to interact with their favorite authors in Harlem, USA. The festival hosts a marketplace of local organizations and vendors, NYPL mobile library, a Black Zine Fair, and programs for all ages. Readings, panel discussions, and workshops at the event range from prose to poetry, comic books to young adult novels, fiction and nonfiction.

We will announce more of our line-up throughout the week!

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Opening Program

11:00 AM | The Art of Black Storytelling

Langston Hughes Auditorium | Schomburg Center (INDOOR)

The Schomburg Center Literary Festival begins with an opening procession and welcome for the 6th annual festival. The keynote conversation featuring Award-winning author and journalist Donovan X. Ramsey discussing the art of Black storytelling and his recent book When Crack Was King. In it he weaves together research with the voices of survivors and re evaluatates the era while offering a powerful augument for offering historically violated communities with the resources they deserve. His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, WSJ Magazine, Ebony, and Essence, among other outlets.

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  • TUES, JUNE 11 | 5:00 PM  

    PRE-FESTIVAL: The Pleasure of Rebellion

    Celebrating the life and work of Black lesbian and feminist writers Alexis De Veaux and Cheryl Clarke who will join Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Schomburg Center Scholar in Residence and curator, Briona Simone Jones in conversation followed by a book signing. The Pleasure of Rebellion exhibition will be on view all evening.

    5PM Reception | 6PM Public Program (Doors Open) | 7:30PM Book Signing

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  • SAT, JUNE 15 | 2:00 PM

    Workshop: Personal Storytelling

    Presented in collaboration with The Moth Community Programs

    There is power in sharing your personal stories—the power to spark meaningful connections, to deepen self-awareness, and even to inspire social change. Over the course of a 2-hour intro to personal storytelling workshop, participants will have the opportunity to shape a life experience of your choosing into a well-crafted story.

    Learn More and Register

  • About the Schomburg Center

    Founded in 1925 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2017, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is one of the world’s leading cultural institutions devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.

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  • Artist Spotlight

    Learn about the artist behind the festival artwork and more by visiting the Schomburg Center Literary Festival website.

    Explore

  • Shop the Literary Festival

    Visit the Schomburg Shop and see a selection of books, clothing items, tote bags, mugs, and more created by Black and Brown artists for all ages.

    Shop

Past Literary Festival Programs

Enjoy revisiting a series of author talks with participants from across the globe.

  • Read Until You Understand

    • WATCH | Read Until You Understand by Farah Jasmine Griffin + Tressie McMillan Cottom (Non-Fiction)
    • WATCH | How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith (Non-Fiction) with Dr. Andrea Roberts
    • WATCH | One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race by Yaba Blay, PhD (Non-Fiction)
    • WATCH | A Conversation with Eddie Glaude, Jr, Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own (Non-Fiction)
    • WATCH | The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America by Carol Anderson + The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America by Ellis Cose (Non-Fiction)
    Image of a Black woman sitting on a wrought iron fence reading a book and a microphone on a stand facing her

  • Freedom Songs in Everyday Life

    • WATCH | Black Culinary History: Michael Twitty and Therese Nelson
    • WATCH | The Age of Phillis (Poetry) and The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois (Fiction) by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 
    • WATCH | The Stories of Black Farmers: Natalie Baszile We Are Each Other's Harvest (Non-Fiction)
    • WATCH | Mama Phife Represent by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor (Poetry/Memoir) + The Renunciations: Poems by Donika Kelly (Poetry)
    • WATCH | A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib in conversation with Dawnie Walton (Fiction)
    • WATCH | Long Division by Kiese Laymon (Fiction) + Let My People Vote by Desmond Meade (Memoir)
    Two black people sitting in chase on a stage facing each other discussing a book

  • Sea to Sea

    • WATCH | A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Fiction) 
    • WATCH | A Conversation with Bernardine Evaristo and Roxane Gay
    • WATCH | 25th Anniversary of the landmark anthology Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby
    • WATCH | Prayer for the Living by Ben Okri  with Chris Abani (Poetry)
    • WATCH | A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes with Dimitry Elias Léger (Fiction)
    • WATCH | The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi with Eloghosa Osunde (Fiction)
    • WATCH | The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta with Emil Wilbekin (YA)
    A Black woman with an up style hairdo standing at a podium with a mic and a photo in the background with a book cover that reads New Daughter of Africa

  • Reading, An Act of Rebellion and Joy

    WATCH | Reading, An Act of Rebellion and Joy with authors Jason Reynolds and Roxane Gay

    WATCH | Black Manhattan In and Out of the Archives: Kia Corthron, Moon and the Mars, Kevin McGruder, Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem with moderator Eric K. Washington

    WATCH | Health and Racism in America: Linda Villarosa, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation with moderator Rebecca Carroll

    WATCH | Literary Monuments, Friendship, and Toni Morrison: A.J. Verdelle, Miss Chloe: A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison with moderator Tiphanie Yanique

    WATCH | Black Food Stories: Bryant Terry Black Food with moderator Summer Sewell

    WATCH | Embracing Desire, A Debut Author’s Journey: Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Big Girl with moderator Jacqueline Woodson

    WATCH | To Be Brave and in Love: Akwaeke Emezi, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty with moderator Nicole Dennis-Benn

    ​WATCH | Crafting Community in Short Stories: Sidik Fofana, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, Ladee Hubbard, The Last Suspicious Holdout: Stories with moderator Ainehi Edoro, Brittle Paper

    WATCH | Kemi Alabi, Against Heaven with Shanelle Gabriel

    WATCH | Akwaeke Emezi, Content Warning: Everything with Shanelle Gabriel

    WATCH | Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian with Novella Ford

    WATCH | Critical Thought: A Evening of Selected Works by Greg Tate with New York Times bestselling poet, essayist, and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times cultural critic, scholar, writer, and activist, Salamishah Tillet, Creative, art collector, archivist and founder of The Gates Preserve Syreeta Gates, poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, recording artist, actor, theater director, Carl Hancock Rux, Jahmani Perry, an interdisciplinary artist, photographer, and award-winning filmmaker and Rashid Shabazz, Executive Director of Critical Minded.

    WATCH | The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening 

     

    Black and white photos of prominent Black writers

The Schomburg Center's Black Liberation Reading List

For 95 years, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has preserved, protected, and fostered a greater understanding of the Black experience through its collections, exhibitions, programs, and scholarship. In response to the uprisings across the globe demanding justice for Black lives in 2020, the Schomburg Center published its Black Liberation Reading List. The 95 titles on the list represent books we and the public turn to regularly as activists, students, archivists, and curators, with a particular focus on books by Black authors and those whose papers we steward. Explore the lists for kids, teens, and adults, and discover which titles are available in accessible formats.

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