Growing up in New York and remembering Black book stands on every corner in any major strip in the city. Men who made an actual living out of selling books. My baby moms uncle had a shop inside 125th Mart. He gave me “The Spook who sat by the door” by Sam Greenlee. I had My man Troy and others who we built around great Black history scholarship. It was a Black men reading subculture we had around each other.
What kick started our purchase of books was, like most book readers, was to follow our favorite authors. Authors rooted in sound Black scholarship whose works were battle tested in places of institution that built European history and in the same buildings these institutions worked hard to kick them out of, withstood their scrutiny because it was sound work. It was always “Yo…who wrote it” after hearing a book title. “Oh word? Let me get that.” It was a great culture to be around in New York. Im certain it was in places like Newark, Chicago and elsewhere. It was a magical time.
But here we are in 2022. Those authors have long since passed. The schools they worked at aged them out and removed their work altogether. And the habit of questioning “who wrote it” has been replaced with simply having a sexy book title on FB, Twitter, or IG and folks no longer scrutinizing the author’s history, his work, and if it was work that could withstand scrutiny.
I say all this to ask a question we used to ask as Black men into black history……
Who the fukk is Ronald Dalton?