Just like the Black experience, Black History is not static, and it is not relegated to the single month that is set aside for it. It is an ongoing narrative from times known to times yet to be known. A story of a people that continues to unfold with the joys and cares that all peoples face.

Black History is the collective witness of the past, present, and future. And for this year’s Black History Month I am honoring this witness with three books.

1. Barracoon

In honor of the past I am reading this classic by Zora Neale Hurston which tells the story of a former slave name Oluale Kossola. Kossala was the last known survivor of the transAtlantic slave trade, who was brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard the Clotilda. He later took the name “Cudjoe Lewis”, and remembered his homeland in western Benin. Kossala also kept his native tongue, Yoruba, and helped to establish Africatown as a safe heaven for former slaves.

I am looking forward to reading this book because Hurston does more than tell the story of a great ancestor. She writes Kossala’s words in the way that he spoke to give the reader a sense of what he sounded like. As I read, I will look at silent footage that Hurston took where Kossala sits on his front porch and walks around his property. He lived until 1935, and I am grateful that, though born in 1983, I shared a century with him.

2. Red Lip Theology

This book, which is my nod to the present, is by Candice Marie Benbow. I first encountered her work last year while writing an article for the Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft (ZMiss). Like me, she was raised in the National Baptist Convention, a historic Black denomination that began in 1895. Benbow has also experienced the joys and pains of Black Church life, and critiques it in a way that is respectful and witty without denigration.

I have decided to read this book first, and so far it has not disappointed me. In fact, it has led me to reflect upon my own story of faith with fresh eyes. For me the pains of the Black Baptist world made me beeline to Scottish Presbyterianism with a resentment towards clergy and parishioners whose actions hurt me. Benbow’s work is helping me to better understand the thinking that is behind such actions, and to treat those who committed them with a grace that is not void of accountability.

3. Binti

Last year I was encouraged to look more into Afrofuturism. So the third book I am reading is this novella by Nnedi Okorafor. To be honest, I picked this book because of its cover, but friends have assured me that I will not regret parting from the old idiom. As a science-fiction zealot I look forward to exploring the alternative world of Okorafor’s creation. A world where a Himba girl ascends from Earth to an intergalactic university. I also look forward to an engaging plot that invokes African words, and presents things from African culture (e.g., otijze) in a non-traditional futuristic setting.

In addition to their captivating subjects, what makes these books so amazing is that they are written by Black women. I hope that all who read them will be uplifted by the words of these wonderful Sistas. Sistas who show that Black History for every day and every age.