These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
Today’s Theme: Unsung Heroes in Historical Fiction!
I was so upset while reading this. The Harlem Renaissance is one of my favorite time periods in history, so I can’t imagine why I had never heard of Jessie. I never even thought about how they gathered the poetry or who put it all together. I guess since it was under DuBois’ name, in my mind it was always him. I never even questioned it. And I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s probably what he wanted. So today with this post I wanted to help bring some love and recognition to the unsung heroine of the Harlem Renaissance, Jessie Redmon Fauset. Because Lordt knows I was annoyed that she was ok with what was happening to her. She deserved so much more.
This was another unsung heroine that I never thought about. I’m not someone who listened to opera before, but this book made me want to. I searched furiously while I was reading this for a recording of her voice. But sadly I found out there were none. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield and this book made me look up so many songs and places. I really learned a lot about her! I loved that we also learn more about the way tours and managers and things were handled in that time. And I’m going to be honest, but I loved the way we were able to see that these women had to work two times as hard to get any recognition; both then and now. They both proved Jasmine Crockett’s point in this video.
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
More Names to Know:
When I finished these, I started thinking about the other fields and the places that have someone that I might not have heard about either. And I got overwhelmed lolol So here’s some that stood out to me so you can feel this way too lol Had you heard of any of these heroes before the book?
The Patterson was a real family with a real carriage company. Sarah Bonnet may not have been as cut throat as she was depicted to be in this one, but she was also a real person and I loved seeing her get what she deserved in this story. I haven’t read The Personal Librarian yet, but this one is next as soon as I can get my hold in. I think it’s going to be interesting to see the way this person handles the things that come her way as she’s passing to get by. I own this one and I’m surprised I haven’t finished it. It came due back to the library before I could finish it, so I still need to. But it’s the first Black woman to own a baseball team in the Negro Leagues. Of course I want it. Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop. I read that the main character is based on someone that actually marched with their parent in Martin’s Day. This is a picture book that’s actually more about an event than a person, but it still counts. I also found Ron’s Big Mission which is a very sweet story of how Ron helped to de-segregate his library. He later became an astronaut which is even cooler. And last but not least, there’s Claudette Colvin. She’s not exactly an unsung hero anymore, but at one point she was. People have recognized Rosa Parks so long but I didn’t learn about Colvin until way later. I didn’t know I had to if that makes sense. I was just always under the impression that Parks was the one. I’m glad this graphic novel now exists to help teach the others about her!
What about you? Have you heard of either of these ladies or their books? Will you plan to read them now? Let me know in the comments!