BLACK MEN AND BOOKS

It is said that if you want to hide something from a black man you should put it in a book. However, it was his contact with books by and about black people that significantly enriched young Ta-Nehisi Coates during his student days at Howard University. The classrooms at Howard, on the other hand, were, for him, “a jail of other people’s interest.” There was an unbridgeable gap between books by and about black people and the books used in the classrooms at Howard University.

We established the Afro-Hispanic Institute, the Afro-Hispanic Review, the Afro-Hispanic Review Press, and finally Original World Press specifically in order to bridge this gap. And, wouldn’t you know it, the upper administration of Howard University has done everything it can to frustrate our efforts. It would seem that the Howard University upper administration is bent ensuring that books continue to mean little or nothing for black men.