Date: Wednesday, January 28 @ 9:30 AM PST
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Across centuries, African American women have lived brilliantly, creatively, lovingly, intentionally—shaping families, communities, nations, and the world. Too often our lives have been framed solely through the lens of struggle, as if our place in world history exists solely in opposition to oppression.
Sister Days is the book that changes the way we think of Black women—our past, present, and our future—each and every day.
In 365 “inspired moments”—sometimes celebrated, often overlooked—these stories are the missing pieces of history’s puzzle. Once assembled, they reveal a fuller picture of our shared human experience.
From the daring escapes of Harriet Tubman to the soaring flights of aviator Bessie Coleman, from Maggie Lena Walker founding a bank to Madame C. J. Walker bankrolling the anti-lynching movement, from Maya Angelou’s poetic “sassiness” to the everyday genius of everyday souls; this is our extraordinary “ordinary.”
Appropriately for Global Reads are the stories Sister Days tells about the power of books and reading to change the world. On September 20, read how a group of Black women risk their lives to publish the constitution of their newly-founded “Female Literary Association of Philadelphia” (FLA) in 1831—the first known book club and the U.S.’s first women’s rights organization.
Special Offer for Global Reads:
Get a digitized copy of the FLA’s historic constitution as published in the December 3, 1831 edition of The Liberator, free with your purchase of Sister Days, click here.
About the Author:
Emmy Award-winning journalist, historian, entrepreneur, and bestselling author of eleven books, Dr. Janus Adams is the host of public radio’s “The Janus Adams Show” and podcast.
A frequent on-air guest, she has appeared on ABC, BET, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC’s The Today Show, and NPR’s All Things Considered. With more than 500 articles, essays and columns to her credit, her work has been featured in Essence and Ms. Magazines, The New York Times, Newsday, USA Today, and The Washington Post. Her syndicated column ran in the Hearst Newspapers for sixteen years. Her commentary has been broadcast on CBS and NPR, and published in the Huffington Post.
Her book, Glory Days: 365 Inspired Moments in African American History, was licensed by McDonald’s and reached more than 3 million readers.
A pioneer of issue-oriented African-American and women’s programming she has hosted her own radio and television talk shows for more than ten years. Her series, “Milestones in African-American Business History,” ran on public radio’s Marketplace. Her 19-hour International Women’s Day marathon broadcasts brought her to NPR as the network’s first National Arts Correspondent and opened the New York News Bureau.
An entrepreneur, as founder of BackPax (a children’s publishing company) and Harambee (the first national book club for African American literature), she changed the publishing landscape for authors and audiences. A dynamic speaker and passionate storyteller, she is known for her unique perspectives on current events through the lens of history.
About the facilitator
Katie Orenstein, founder and CEO of The OpEd Project writes and speaks frequently about the intersection of media and mythology – that is, what we think is fact or fiction and how that shapes our ideas about politics, culture and history. She has contributed to the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald. Her commentaries on women, politics, popular culture, mythology and human rights have been nationally syndicated and appear in anthologies. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford universities, and appeared on ABC TV World News, Good Morning America, MSNBC, CNN and NPR All Things Considered. A graduate of Harvard (MA) and Columbia (MA) universities, she is the author of Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality & the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, which explores stories told about women over 500 years across multiple continents, and how they shape our lives today. It has been translated into multiple languages and is under consideration for a television series. Newsweek called it “revelatory,” The Wall Street Journal called it “beguiling,” and feminist author Naomi Wolf called it “laid back, readable brilliance.”
Orenstein has lived and worked around the world and particularly in Haiti, where she traveled as a folklore student and journalist in the 1990s, during a time of political upheaval. As a result of that experience, she has reported extensively on Haiti; organized fact-finding delegations for journalists, scholars and lawmakers; and consulted with the United Nations human rights mission. In 1996, she worked with a team of international human rights lawyers to assist victims of military and paramilitary violence in seeking justice. She investigated tortures, rapes, political assassinations and massacres; interviewed hundreds of victims, witnesses and alleged criminals; and coordinated lawyers’ and victims’ efforts to build cases against their persecutors. She has written about some of these cases and their aftermaths in Haiti and in the United States.
Orenstein has received a Peabody-Gardner Fellowship, Tinker Grant and a Cordier Essay Prize (from Columbia University), and was a finalist for the 2004 Prize for Promise, designed “to identify young women, aged 21-35,of great promise and vision who could... become world leaders in their respective fields.” She is a fellow with The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, a recipient of The Diana P Scott Integrity in Action Award, and a fellow of Echoing Green, which selected The OpEd Project as one of 19 of the most innovative social enterprises worldwide, out of a pool of 1500 applicants.
