Arts & Culture

Black books, authors at Schomburg Festival

By Christoper Frazier

In the countdown toward the Schomburg Literary Festival, author Tamara Payne, who was scheduled to be a panelist at that yearly gathering, talked about the power of books, especially ones by and about Black people. 

“Information is healing to people who’ve suffered … ” Payne said, and for those who can never know their pain. 

The books, panel discussions and other activities at the four-day festival in June explored that topic, Black rebellion, storytelling, debut novels, how to get your creative juices flowing and so forth. Payne, co-author of Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Dead are Arising, a biography on Malcolm X that her father, Les Payne, started writing decades ago, was on the “Biographies” panel. (Her father died before he finished the book.)

As for festival attendees, said Payne, a Biographers International Organization Frank Rollins Fellow, “I wanted them to know that there is support for black biographies and get people interested in them.”

Other presenters at the festival were authors Elizabeth Acevedo, Vinson Cunningham, Diane Richards, Donovan X. Ramsey and Lana Turner.

As curator of the 6-year-old festival’s Zora Neale Hurston Stage, Shanelle Gabriel said she selected poets Omar Holmon, Fanta Ballo, Trace DePass and Anastacia Renee. 

“I wanted to support this genre that I love,” said Gabriel, a poet, artist and educational consultant, who planned to take in the “Woke Baby Children’s Festival” of readings, craft-making and other activities. 

“I’m very excited. There’s a space for kids where young adults and other adults can read books,” she said, of the Schomburg activities named after “Woke Baby” by author Mahogany Browne.

Harlem’s Revolution Books was returning as a festival vendor. “It’s one of the most important archives of the African diaspora in the world,” Brenda Lyon, a Revolution Books leading team member, said of the 99-year-old Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 

“They have,” author Payne said, of the center, part of the New York Public Library, “videos Malcolm took during his hajj. He was a brilliant filmmaker. Ossie Davis donated postcards Malcolm sent him during his trip.”

“I hope,” poet Gabriel said, “the public comes to the festival and sees themselves. I want them to think, ‘Maybe I can be a writer.’”