Jeffery and I are so grateful that our ancestors reclaimed narratives will be amplified through KIN’s selection as the 2025 One Maryland One Book. We can almost feel our ancestors smiling down on us. Stay tuned for details of related activities. Thank you, Maryland Humanities.
With 80 books, there’s a title for (almost) every season and observance, including Photography Month (May), Memorial Day, Black Music Month (June) and Juneteenth. Add to that books, activities and presentations for summer reading programs and Vacation Bible School (VBS!). It’s not too late to book the Weatherfords for late spring and summer.
For Photography Month, Jeffery and I focus on Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange and how primary source photographs figure into our historical research.
KICK-OFF SUMMER WITH A SALUTE & SONG
For Memorial Day, we honor military heroes with poems from YOU CAN FLY; THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN and from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE and a rousing rap from Jeffery saluting the pioneering Black WWII pilots.
On May 31 or June 1, I hope you will pause to remember Black Wall Street, the nation’s wealthiest Black business district, once located in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood community, which, in 1921, was the scene of the nation’s worst incident of racial violence. UNSPEAKABLE: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE, my 2021 collaboration with the late Floyd Cooper, tells that story.
For the Juneteenth national holiday, Jeffery and I share stories of enslavement and emancipation from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, MOSES: WHEN HARRIET TUBMAN LED HER PEOPLE TO FREEDOM and JUNETEENTH JAMBOREE, the first children’s book about the first African-American holiday.
This summer Jeffery will again offer his popular Hip Hop Tech workshop, now known as RAP IT UP!–after our upcoming picture book collaboration. These transformative sessions get tweens and teens hyped about writing and performing original rap lyrics. A Petersburg, Virginia, workshop produced what has got to be thee dopest testimonial: “I can’t believe they let us get lit like that in the library! Believe it. Jeffery is already booked for a residency in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
For Black Music Month, Jeffery and I tune in to African-American musical genres and musicians–from spirituals, blues, and gospel, to jazz, soul and rap. Yes, we got books for all that.
TAKING IT TO CHURCH!
With book bans proliferating and Black history under attack, grassroots reading/study groups are needed more than ever. We encourage churches to host reading programs for all ages, but especially for children. Many of our titles are perfect for Vacation Bible School and for multigenerational audiences and discussions. Reading guides for many of these books are available as free downloads (more on that later). If your church literacy initiative uses our books, let us know. We may be available to join the discussion via Zoom. Here are some spirit-filled books to consider.
Group shots clockwise from top left: Jeffery and Carole greet family and friends after the KIN event in Easton, Maryland; BROS Day, a celebration hosted by the Chicago-based pop-up play space, Brown Books and Paintbrushes; at the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, Maryland; a student reading How Do You Spell Unfair? as part of the Dublin, California, One City/One Book project. The new picture book bios, Crown of Stories and Outspoken, release in April.
During Black History Month, Jeffery Boston Weatherford–my son and collaborator–and I took KIN: Rooted in Hope home to Talbot County, Maryland, where our newly freed forebears co-founded Reconstruction-era villages. Big hugs to librarian and event organizer Cindy Orban (top center in purple)–the best friend a book ever had. Thanks to the event sponsors, including Talbot County Free Library, The Country School, Avalon Theatre and Dorchester County Tourism Office. By the way, there’s now a KIN reading guide to accompany the Family Tree Activity sheet.
While in Easton, Maryland, we made what I am told was the largest donation statewide to the inaugural Maryland Commission on African American History & Culture Book Drive: board books–My Favorite Toy and Mighty Menfolk–for Talbot County’s toddlers.
Jeffery and I celebrated Women’s History Month at Nashville’s Public Library and KIPP Middle School with presentations spotlighting little-known (s)heroes in collaboration Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman’s Fight for Equality and Respect and in How Do You Spell Unfair? Macnolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee, illustrated by Frank Morrison.
Jeffery’s solo exhibition of prints from KIN—April 7 and through June at Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Museum–will include the above portrait of Francis Scott Key. During the War of 1812, Key penned the Star Spangled Banner as bombs burst over Baltimore’s harbor. That same harbor made headlines recently when a 200-million-ton freighter slammed the Frances Scott Key Bridge, causing its collapse, six deaths and thousands of lost jobs. I pray for the families of the road crew who were killed. I pray that my hometown can bear this blow and that rebuilding will be swift. #MarylandTough #BaltimoreStrong
There’s still time to book us–the Weatherfords–for a school visit this spring. We also offer Juneteenth celebrations and summer programs, such as Jeffery’s popular Rap It Up hip-hop writing workshop for ages 10 to adult. And it’s not too early to book us for next school year.
Finally, National Poetry Month calls for a one-poem project. May we suggest “Daniel Lloyd,” “Chicken Sue” or “Prissy” from KIN; “Head to the Sky” from You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, “Fifth Grade” from Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library or the opening poem from Outspoken? Pluck a few six-line poems from BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom. Or choose a poetic picture book like Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, Freedom in Congo Square, You are My Pride: A Love Letter from Your Motherland, Be a King: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Dream and You or The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop.
The picture book bios Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America and How Do You Spell Unfair? Macnolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee are also good fits for one-poem projects. You could even share those titles in May around the National Spelling Bee or National Photography Month. Can you say C-H-E-E-S-E?
October is Family History Month, and true to form, I’m posting one day before it ends. My new verse novel, KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, is truly a family affair–a family history created by me and my son, illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford. The book spans four generations, extending from colonial America to the Jim Crow era. The action is set on Maryland’s largest enslavement plantation and in the all-Black Reconstruction era villages founded by our ancestors.
While my poems conjure ancestral voices and recreate lost narratives, Jeffery’s stunning scratchboard illustrations bring our ancestors, and the adversity they overcame, out of obscurity and life. From plantation ledgers, military records, material culture and the landscape, I learned so much about my forebears, their contemporaries and their milieu. With help from cousins who had done much of the genealogy, I traced my earliest known ancestors, Isaac and Nan Copper, to 1770. Hard as I tried, though, I could not find their/my African origins. When facts proved elusive, I took creative license. Engaging in what scholar Saidiya Hartman terms “critical fabulation,” I pushed past the archive and discovered more than I ever imagined. Here are my key takeaways.
KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, my latest collaboration with award-winning illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford, launches Thursday, October 19, 6-9 PM at the Reginald Lewis Museum at 830 East Pratt Street in Baltimore. In KIN, our family’s history unfolds through my poems and my son’s art. The book discussion moderated by Dr. Leslie King Hammond will begin at 7 PM. There will also be a pop-up exhibition of Jeffery’s digital scratchboard art from the book. Register here. The first 125 registrants will receive a free copy of the book. Jeffery and I hope to see you there.
FAMILY TREES, ROYAL ROOTS, SCHOOL VISITS & FREE GUIDES
Why so sad? I just found out that Carole is not my mother.
How far back can you trace your roots? In KIN: Rooted in Hope, my son Jeffery and I reach back to 1770 at Maryland’s largest plantation and to the Reconstruction-era villages our ancestors co-founded. Dramatic poems and scratchboard art conjure our enslaved forebears, reclaiming lost narratives and a royal legacy.
Our new presentation based on KIN shares primary sources, poems, illustrations and the book’s backstory. We are now booking school and library visits for KIN and for K-12 programs about the Tuskegee Airmen, Tulsa Race Massacre, segregation/civil rights, jazz/the Harlem Renaissance/Great Depression, poetry and your choice of biographies. And we’re still celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop.
In case you missed these TEACHER GUIDES for recent and award-winning titles.
Standing in the Need of Prayer: A Modern Retelling of the Classic Spiritual
How Do You Spell Unfair? MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee
Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre
The Faith of Elijah Cummings: The North Star for Equal Justice
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul
To bring us to your school or community, contact cbwpoet@gmail.com.
Pass history on!
Carole and Jeffery
Just in time for Black History Month. AFRICA, my new ebook, celebrates the Motherland through poetry and photos. For children ages 0-6. The book is the debut release from Great Brain Entertainment, a venture by fine artist and digital designer Jeffery Weatherford (my son). More on that later… Available on amazon.com and bn.com
