The Melanin Book Expo will provide an incredible opportunity for authors, publishers, and business owners to engage the wider African Canadian literary community in Toronto. Our organizing committee, as well as our membership, and volunteers have engaged 54 authors, 28 publishers, 3 African Centred book stores, and 39 vendors from the African Canadian community to participate in this historic event. The expo will be held January 28th 2017 at 3pm at the Jamaican Canadian Association. We expect that the conference will bring together a wide demographic of community members to celebrate the local literary excellence within our city.
Literacy has always been a critical theme amongst our people throughout North America. Fredrick Douglass was enslaved to be a pet for his master’s son. One day, the son was working through his literary lessons with his mother when his father arrived. He scolded her at the sight of Douglass watching the lesson, saying that learning makes a Negro unfit to be a slave. Douglass then understood, that through literacy and educational attainment, our people would be able to challenge the institution of their enslavement.
Over the past few years, we have seen many members of our community lose faith in the power of literacy and education to change their lives. Our community has collecitvely invested much energy and resources protesting ongoing social injustices as opposed to specificly supporting literacy and educational attainment initiatives. This book expo is another opportunity to edify our children and youth and expose our fellow consituents of Toronto with the knowledge of our local literary stalwarts and our international griots such as Austin Clarke, Marimba Ani, and Dr. John Henrik Clark to name a few. The challenges associated with literacy in our community manifest in various forms. One of the outcomes of this expo will be to support parents with actionable insights into cultivating our children into life long lerarners and verocious readers.
We look forward to your attendance!
Warm Regards
