Amistad Press launched the movement and hashtags #BlackPublishingPower and #BlackOutBestSellerList to support black authors and get their names on bestseller lists throughout the country. Tracy Sherrod, editorial director of Amistad, brought this idea to life. She told Publishers Weekly that the goal is “to turn the best-seller lists Black, to take the list over with books by Black writers or by other people of color.”
Through this initiative, people are encouraged to purchase two books by black authors through June 20. This is a movement Faye says she hopes people in Dallas will get behind, too. “I believe that the literary community in Dallas should stand up for this, for this movement,” she says.
Faye is the author of Mourner’s Bench, a story about 8-year-old Sarah Jones coming to terms with the traditions of her community in 1960s Arkansas and the progressive nature of her mother, who is involved with the civil rights movement.
Shine a light: A new movement seeks to fill bestseller lists with African American works (Dallas Morning News)