Center for Black Literature at Brooklyn Public Library's 'Til Victory is Won

On Saturday, October 26, 2019, the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College was among the cultural partners that presented as part of Brooklyn Public Library’s (BPL) Til Victory is Won: 400 Years of Making Revolution and Inventing Utopia, which was BPL’s teach-in to observe the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to Jamestown, Virginia.

The discussion “Representations of Enslaved Peoples in Literature” featured Dr. Brenda M. Greene, founder and executive director of the Center for Black Literature, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess. Greene and Jess read poems based on the narrative of Henry “Box” Brown, a Virginia slave who escaped to freedom in a box. Additionally, they led a discussion and shared readings from excerpts of historical and contemporary poems and novels that represent the legacy of enslaved people in the United States.