Tuesday, January 30

Talking Leaves presents Ibram X. Kendi in Conversation with Ariel Aberg-Riger

7pm Doors, 7:30pm Event

Tickets: Purchase of Barracoon from Talking Leaves Books required to attend
Books from the store, TLeavesBooks.com or at the door, at the special price of $15.00 (+tax) is required for admission to this event. Pre-purchased books MUST include either a store receipt or a  website invoice, which can be printed out or shown on a mobile phone.

Copies of books by both authors will be available for purchase at Asbury Hall.

Readers ages 8 and up are welcome to attend.

Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award–winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. His books include Antiracist Baby; Goodnight Racism; How to Be an Antiracist; and How to Raise an Antiracist. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. In 2020, Time magazine named Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He has also been awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship.

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. She wrote four novels (Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountains, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948); two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Every Tongue Got to Confess, 2001); a work of anthropological research, (Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); an international bestselling nonfiction work (Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” 2018); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1928. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.

Ariel Aberg-Riger is a visual storyteller who creates engaging, accessible stories about history, science, policy, and other forces that shape our lives. Her work explores issues of equity and social justice, on topics that range from environmental racism to the public library. Her first book, America Redux: Visual Stories of our Dynamic History (Balzer & Bray/Harper Collins) was awarded the prestigious 2023 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. Ariel’s work has appeared in the Atlantic, the Guardian, Bloomberg, Teen Vogue, and more. She is a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Nonfiction Literature and lives with her wife and two kids in Buffalo, NY. Learn more at arielabergriger.com and americareduxbook.com.

This event is sponsored by Buffalo Public Schools Office of Culturally & Linguistically Responsive Initiatives (CLRI) and Talking Leaves…Books with support from Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Asbury Hall, and publisher Amistad Books for Young Readers. We are also grateful for generous financial support from the Key Bank Foundation for the purchase of copies of Barracoon: Adapted for Young Readers. We will be giving free autographed copies of the book to a few hundred Buffalo Public School students during a separate student-only school event with Dr. Kendi the following morning.