WURD's Summer of Freedom Tour Returns to the Free Library!

Tue, August 20, 2019 10:00 A.M.
Overbrook Park Library

Join WURD radio (96.1FM / 900AM) for a LIVE broadcast from the library, 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m., as part of their annual Summer of Freedom tour.

Adult Young Adult Community Events African American

It's LIT for Little Brown Girls

Wed, August 21, 2019 1:00 P.M.
Oak Lane Library

Join us for an interactive book club for young girls of color.  We'll focus on books with characters that look like us!  For girls, ages 7 to 11.

School Age Discussion and Participation African American Book Clubs

It's LIT for Little Brown Girls

Wed, August 28, 2019 1:00 P.M.
Oak Lane Library

Join us for an interactive book club for young girls of color.  We'll focus on books with characters that look like us!  For girls, ages 7 to 11.

School Age Discussion and Participation African American Book Clubs

Book Discussion: Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

Wed, August 28, 2019 4:00 P.M.
Nicetown-Tioga Library

With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery - one Saturday in March 1995 - of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a…

Adult Senior Discussion and Participation Other Great Programs African American Literature Book Clubs

African American Interest Book Discussion

Mon, September 9, 2019 6:00 P.M.
Philbrick Hall at Parkway Central Library

The African American Interest Book Discussion Group will hold its next meeting on September 9, 2019 in Room 405 from 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.  This will be a book and movie discussion of If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. Please RSVP to librarian Lisa Hardy (215-686-5320) or…

Adult Discussion and Participation African American Book Clubs

Monday Poets | Aria D. Matthews and Brian Teare

Mon, September 9, 2019 6:30 P.M.
Literature Department at Parkway Central Library

Airea D. Matthews is the author of  Simulacra  (Yale University Press, 2017), selected by Carl Phillips as the winner of the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets. Matthews received an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. A Cave Canem…

Adult Young Adult School Age Senior Live Performances Monday Poets Reading Series African American Author Events Literature

Chat-n-Chew Book Club

Tue, September 10, 2019 6:30 P.M.
West Oak Lane Library

Do you love to read?  Do you like to talk?  If you do, please consider joining the West Oak Lane Library's book group. We will meet approximately every five weeks.  Today, we'll be talking about "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng.  

Adult Senior Discussion and Participation African American Book Clubs

Home on Our Back: A Laureate’s Reading on the Poetics of Diaspora

Sat, September 14, 2019 7:00 P.M.
Literature Department at Parkway Central Library

Join us for a bi-city poetry collaboration between Boston Poet Laureate Porsha Olayiwola and Philadelphia Poet Laureate Raquel Salas Rivera , which explores how migrations have shaped both East Coast cities. From North to South, from enslavement to freedom, across borders, from colony to the…

Adult Young Adult Senior Live Performances New Americans Philadelphia Poet Laureate African American Citizenship LGBTQ Literature Performing Arts Philadelphia History Humanities Bilingual Programs

Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Water Dancer

Wed, September 25, 2019 8:00 P.M.
Irvine Auditorium | 3401 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Cost: $30 - $60 book included with ticket

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. In conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Blight, author of Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom Ta-Nehisi Coates won the 2015 National Book Award for  Between the World and Me , a “searing meditation on what it means…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series African American Author Events Fiction Literature History

Imani Perry | Breathe: A Letter to My Sons

Wed, October 2, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

In conversation with Tracey Matisak, award-winning broadcaster and journalist Dr. Imani Perry is the author of Looking for Lorraine , a work of “masterly syntheses of research and analysis” ( New York Times Book Review ) of the life of Lorraine Hansberry, the author of  A Raisin…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Author Events

Susan Rice | Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For

Thu, October 10, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: $15.00; $35.00 with book

Tickets on sale September 9, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and President Obama’s national security advisor from 2013 to 2017, Susan Rice has been at the forefront of…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Ticketed Series African American Author Events Biography & Autobiography Politics

Erica Armstrong Dunbar | She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman

Tue, November 5, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Erica Armstrong Dunbar is the author of the National Book Award finalist Never Caught, the story of Ona Judge, a young enslaved person who risked her life to escape servitude under President George Washington. Named the National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians and the first…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Author Events Biography & Autobiography General Research History

Saeed Jones | How We Fight for Our Lives with Clifford Thompson | What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues

Tue, November 12, 2019 7:30 P.M.
Parkway Central Library

Cost: FREE

Saeed Jones is the author of the “hard and glaring and brilliant” ( NPR Book Review ) poetry collection Prelude to Bruise , winner of the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. He is also the co-host of BuzzFeed’s morning show AM to DM and was the…

Adult Author Events Speakers and Lectures Author Events - Free Series African American Author Events Biography & Autobiography History Social Justice