Excellent anthology of great writers who came before us and made a way. It’s a book everyone should read.

Black Ink gives the reader a new perspective on Black American literature by turning the focal point to the writers themselves. This book is a vital companion to any literature class for it provides biographical, historical and societal context to the works by these authors.

Black Ink gives the reader a new perspective of African American literature, by turning that conversation back to the writers themselves. As an educator, this book is an incredible companion to any literature class, giving biographical, historical and societal context to the works by these authors.

This was a wonderfully curated collection of essays from black authors. The selection of writers that was chosen for this book was fantastic, including Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates, among many others. Each piece is preceded by a short bio of each of the contributors. Nikki Giovanni wrote a powerful foreword and that, in itself, was deserving of recognition. *ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

A who's who of black literature, this compendium is a must in literature classrooms. I love how it was divided into three parts: Peril, Power, and Pleasure. The foreword by Nikki Giovanni and the interview with Barack Obama, extras as they may be, add to the importance of this anthology.

A must-have collection - in both content, view point, and authorial position. If I was an English professor, or a teacher of any kind, this would be my go-to text. A strong, strong recommend.

In this anthology Stephanie Stokes Oliver brings together 25 of the most illustrious and talented Black authors. Spanning from America’s antebellum period to the present Black Ink documents the evolution of Black thought and the power of the written word. To achieve this endeavor Stokes Oliver has divided our literary history into three major epochs: The Peril, The Power and The Pleasure.

The Peril of Education reminds us of the danger inherent with the process of reading for the slave. Punishable by death our ancestors literally risked their lives in order to learn to read.
The Power of Literacy illustrates the struggle for Civil Rights and the impact that reading and writing had on defining Black identity and self-determination.
Lastly, The Pleasure of Literature celebrates the freedom enjoyed by today’s writers of color and the diverse imprint they have etched into the literary canon.

Although I have read most of these authors it was a lifting experience learning about the process by which they were motivated and encouraged by the written word. In my own lifetime some of these very authors have given me the strength to push through my own trials. Black Ink is a necessary history, one that I will certainly be returning to.

Every so often a book comes along that is needed, this is one of those books. Black ink. Just sit a moment with this quote from the introduction, by editor Stephanie Stokes Oliver, “It’s hard to believe that the relaxing, recreational endeavor of reading a good book that so many of us savor and take for granted was, for more than two hundred years, not only illegal for most African Americans enslaved in many states of the South, but also punishable by death.”

I mean when you really consider the weight of that, the possibility of beatings, lashings, indeed death for reading, that’s very heavy. Well Stephanie Oliver has compiled a volume that takes a look at reading and by extension writing and what it has meant to some of our greatest writers and how the love of words drove them to reach higher, strive harder. She takes twenty-five writers historical and current and uses excerpts from their works and interviews to compile this historical and worthy document of black ink. Frederick Douglas to Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Each essay has a mention about reading and/or writing that acted as a guide to inspire, motivate and in some cases advocate on behalf of some greater cause. This is the type of book that you will return to again and again, for inspiration, for ammunition to coax non-readers towards a more literary leaning or maybe something else. But I assure you, it won’t be one you put up on the shelf, perhaps the night stand to keep it within reach for a quick peruse of a certain essay. The book is divided into three parts, The Peril, The Power and The Pleasure. From the section titles it shouldn’t be hard to figure what each section is about. She presents the essays in chronological order by birth of the writer, so the younger contemporary writers will be in the later section. That doesn’t preclude them from being associated with power and peril, but certainly not peril in the historical sense.

For years whenever the voting conversation would take center stage, someone would always remark ‘people died for your right to vote’ and I would answer that with a pithy response like ‘well people also died for you to be able to read and you haven’t read a book since you’ve been an adult.’ That would always be an exchange ender. So, for this reader I was thrilled to see the following quote, again from the introduction, “When it comes to voting rights, Black parents often admonish their grown children to be sure to exercise their freedom in every election, because people died in the fight to obtain the right to vote. The proof is not disputed……The story of the struggle for full literacy among African Americans has yet to be documented as thoroughly. The purpose of Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing is to help fill that void.” Well congratulations Ms. Stephanie Stokes Oliver you have done a tremendous job in filling that void. Big thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for providing an advanced ebook. Book will drop Jan. 30, 2018 just in time for Black History Month.