By Kendra Bryant
Special to the AFRO
Enoch Pratt Library held its annual 38th Black History Month Booklover’s Breakfast on Feb.7, featuring author and NAACP Image Award finalist Angela Flournoy.
Credit: AFRO Photos / Kendra Bryant
In her novel “The Wilderness,” Flournoy explores the importance of friendship through the lives of five Black women navigating a 20-year friendship.
“Friends are the family you chose, ” said Angela Flournoy. “I have two sisters, but I’ve always been on the hunt for more sisters.”
Flournoy said she was inspired to write the novel while reflecting on the death of her mother and the lifelong friendship her mother shared with a woman Flournoy considered an aunt.
“My mother’s mother died when she was 10,” said Flournoy. “My mother, Francine, was sent to live with her father in Southern California. She started a new school, had to make new friends. One of these friends had four brothers and no sisters. She was outgoing, a big presence, even as a child. My mother Francine was reserved, witty and logical. They were both 11 years old and they chose each other. They would spend the next 51 years living their lives as sisters.”
She discusses the ways in which “chosen family” have shown up to protect many social groups throughout history such as African Americans, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community.
“Who historically has needed to choose their family most? The enslaved whose biological relations might be stolen from them at any moment,” said Flournoy. “If a child’s mother is sold away, that child might be lucky enough for a new mother to step in and raise them. Two motherless children might grow up to look after one another and call each other sisters as a result.”
According to the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization dedicated to ending racial injustice, this physically brutal and inhumane enterprise devastated Black families. Roughly half of all enslaved people were separated from their spouses and parents; about one in four of those sold were children. Slaveholders threatened separation to maintain control, forcing enslaved people to live with the constant fear of losing a loved one.
As the government continues to make attempts in removing African-American history, the Black authors and bookstores who tell and promote Black stories have become even more important.
“The importance of Black owned bookstores is significant, especially at a time like this,” said Young. “First of all, there are so many institutions trying to ban books. And when you think of Black bookstores specifically, our history has been one that has always been on the chopping block.”
During the event, Flournoy read pages from the first chapter of her novel and told the story of how she met some of her closest friends, actresses Aja Naomi King and Ashley Nicole Black.
“I went to a school that was a majority minority school in the suburbs in Los Angeles and there were two girls there who were also artsy and nerdy, Ashley and Asia,” said Flournoy. “We wanted artistic lives. We wanted to take the kinds of risks that come with being from a middle class and urban community. We stayed in each other’s lives.”
King and Black went on to participate in the narration of “The Wilderness”audiobook.
Local book clubs include the Sistah Girl Book Club, Ebony BookEnds, Brown Girls Book Club DMV, Sistas Turning Pages and The African American Literary Guild represented Black women and the push for literacy within the community.
Copies of Flournoy’s book were available for purchase through the MahoganyBooks emphasizing the importance of Black people in the literature space.
“No one can control whether our stories have significance or not, and access to those stories,” said Ramunda Young, co-owner of MahoganyBooks. “Black bookstores make access to our stories possible every single day. We are pillars in our community.”