Hooked on History (Zoom)


Event Details


History Lovers! This book club is for you! Each season we select a book for our first meeting to read together that covers a theme or time period of history. For our second session, the group reads from a list of books on the same topic to delve further into the theme.

For February and March, the group will meet Monday, February 28 and Monday, March28 at 7 pm.

For February’s meeting the group will read The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs.  For March’s meeting we will read from a list of books about/by the three leaders (MLK, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin).

You can register and pick up a copy of The Three Mothers at the Reference Desk. For more information and to get the zoom link to participate in the discussions via Zoom, email Mary Bear Shannon at shannon@haverfordlibrary.org.

About The Three Mothers:

Berdis Baldwin, Alberta King, and Louise Little were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women. These three extraordinary women passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning―from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced.

These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America’s racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families’ safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers.

These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.