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TURNING MICHELLE OBAMA’S ‘BECOMING’ INTO A CLASS CURRICULUM FOR BLACK GIRLS

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Obama Curriculum

Lauren Christine Mims is a former assistant director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans and a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of Virginia. She’s also one of the many women inspired by Michelle Obama’s Becominga New York Times best-selling book that sold more than 1.4 million copies within the first seven days of its release. Now, Mims is turning Obama’s book into a curriculum for black girls to further their learning and development.

“Reading Becoming was like sitting on the couch with your best friend and having one of those soulful conversations about life,” said Mims.

“Reading about how Michelle Obama felt unchallenged in elementary school, teased for the way she spoke, and noticed a difference in how she was perceived during adolescence was affirming.”

Mims hopes the Becoming curriculum will make space for black girls to thrive in a world that often seems to try and deny their humanity. As part of her doctoral research at the University of Virginia, Mims explores what it means to be a young, gifted, black girl in school.

“I disrupt the traditional practice of talking about black girls in pejorative ways and center them and their unique experiences to study how we can support them. For example, my research highlights what ‘Black Girl Magic’ means to black girls; the role teachers play in supporting or stopping the success of black girls; and more about what they are learning and how it makes them feel.”

“If you follow Jada Pinkett Smith, Adrienne Norris, and Willow Smith, think about my interviews as Red Table Talks where black girls are supported in discussing challenges and designing solutions.”

Lauren-Christine-Mims

As part of the curriculum, students read Becoming, and watch films featuring black girls in leading roles. Additionally, “we will have important conversations, like about what it means to feel like your presence is a threat or that you do not belong. We will discuss Maddie Whitsett and McKenzie Nicole Adams; two 9-year-old black girls who died by suicide after being subjected to bullying. At the end of the course, students will apply their knowledge to draft new research proposals, policies, and practices,” says Mims.

Beyond the walls of the classroom, Mims says there are four things we can all do to support black girls:

  • Create supportive, affirming, and loving environments by listening to their needs and centering their unique experiences of Becoming;
  • Advocate for, adopt, and enforce school policies and accountability practices that recognize the brilliance of black girls and ensure they are not being pushed out of school.
  • Address the bullying, harassment, and discrimination of black girls and ensure that all students have access to mental healthcare;
  • Care for your own mental health and well-being.

Ultimately, Mims wants girls to know that they are enough. As Michelle Obama writes, “Becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim,” yet there is so much pressure in college to define your identity and pick a career path. It can take a toll on you. Know that you are brilliant and never “underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”

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Princeton University Professor Tera Hunter Wins Two Book Awards From the American Historical Association

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Tera-hunter

Tera W. Hunter, the Edwards Professor of History and professor of African American studies at Princeton University in New Jersey, has been awarded the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in women’s history and/or feminist theory as well as the Littleton-Griswold Prize in U.S. law and society from the American Historical Association. She will be honored at the association’s annual meeting in Chicago in January.

Professor Hunter was honored for her book Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (Harvard University Press, 2017). Professor Hunter’s great-great grandparents were slaves, freed, and married during the Reconstruction era. In the book, Professor Hunter used her research of court records, legal documents, and personal diaries to examine the constraints slavery placed on intimate relationships.

Earlier this year, Dr. Hunter was awarded the Mary Nickliss Prize in U.S. Women’s and/or Gender History from the Organization of American Historians for the same book.

Professor Hunter joined the faculty at Princeton in 2007 after earlier teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Dr. Hunter is a graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

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5 African American Authors with $100k+ in Book Sales in 2018

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Angel Rich

Every year, hundreds of thousands of new books are released and many of them are written by Black authors. Sadly, however, most books flop and don’t sell more than 100-200 copies. But there are some authors who are able to sell thousands of copies, and generate a six figure income from their books. They’ve proven that you don’t have to sign a multi-million dollar book deal to be a successful author!

#1 – History of the Black Dollar – This book, independently published and written in 2017 by Angel Rich, founder of The Wealth Factory, has impressively generated more than $120K in sales. It reveals significant economic moments in history that have helped shape America – slavery, sharecropping, convict leasing, Little Rock Nine, Black Wall Street, Civil Rights, The Great Recession, Black Lives Matter and other important milestones.

#2 – Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History – Written by Vashti Harrison in 2017, this beautifully illustrated New York Times bestseller introduces readers of all ages to 40 women who changed the world. An important book for all ages, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of forty trailblazing black women in American history. It is one of the most popular (and profitable) books for 2017 and 2018 in the African American children’s book category.

#3 – Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires – Released in 2018 by author Shomari Wills, this book tells the little-known stories of six pioneering African American entrepreneurs, and makes a worthy contribution to black history, to business history, and to American history. It is the best-selling Black business book of the year!

#4 – An American Marriage: A Novel – Written by Tayari Jones, this book was endorsed by former President Obama and was selected for Oprah’s 2018 Book Club which generated skyrocketing sales overnight. It’s a moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple, and is one of the best-selling African American fiction novels of the year!

#5 – Becoming – Written by former First Lady Michelle Obama in 2018, this book will not be released until November 2018, but it has reportedly already generated more than $500K in pre-order sales. It’s a memoir and a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, where Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her.

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BLAQ Entrepreneur Book Recommendation: The Hustle, the Pursuit, the Drive, the “Grind”

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Rise and Grind book cover

Continuing our series of top book recommendations for black entrepreneurs, we are recommending another one from your favorit “Shark”, Mr. Daymond John. As always, if you’re not much of a reader like myself, I highly suggest you pick up this book on Audible, Amazon’s audio book service.

Rise and Grind

Rise and Grind book

The New York Times best-selling author of The Power of Broke and “Shark” on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank explores how grit, persistence, and good old-fashioned hard work are the backbone of every successful business and individual, and inspires listeners to Rise and Grind their way the top.

Daymond John knows what it means to push yourself hard – and he also knows how spectacularly a killer work ethic can pay off. As a young man, he founded a modest line of clothing on a $40 budget by hand-sewing hats between his shifts at Red Lobster. Today, his brand FUBU has over $6 billion in sales.

Convenient though it might be to believe that you can shortcut your way to the top, says John, the truth is that if you want to get and stay ahead, you need to put in the work. You need to out-think, out-hustle, and out-perform everyone around you. You’ve got to rise and grind every day.

In the anticipated follow-up to the best-selling The Power of Broke, Daymond takes an up close look at the hard-charging routines and winning secrets of individuals who have risen to the challenges in their lives and grinded their way to the very tops of their fields. Along the way, he also reveals how grit and persistence both helped him overcome the obstacles he has faced in life and ultimately fueled his success.

Take advantage of 2-Free audiobook downloads.

Remember, Prime Day is July 16th, starting at noon (PST). If you’re not already an Amazon Prime member, try it out FREE for 30-days.
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BLAQ Entrepreneur Book Recommendation: Rethink What it Means to be “Broke”

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Power of Broke book cover

Amazon Audible SubscriptionMy favorite form of purposeful distraction, is to listen to audio books. My favorite platform to listen to these audiobooks is on Audible, Amazon’s audio book service. Between the website and the mobile app, Audible allows me to use my laptop while working in my home office, or my phone and earbuds during my morning run, or using my phones bluetooth to listen through my car speakers while driving. It adds an additional layer of entertainment that I find pleasing.

My favorite topic by far is anything on entrepreneurship, branding, marketing, negotiation, or anything that I believe will inspire me to move the needle in my own entrepreneurship journey.

With this in mind, I will be sharing some of my favorite audiobooks focusing on books in the entrepreneurship, business, and self-improvement categories that I have in my Audible library (once you download them, they are yours forever).

The Power of Broke

Power of Broke Cover 1As an African-American, I believe most of us can identify with humble beginnings. That’s exactly what this book is about. It speaks to the authors humble beginnings (or, growing up broke), and his journey and rise to fame.

Daymond John has been practicing the power of broke ever since he started selling his home-sewn T-shirts on the streets of Queens. With no funding and a $40 budget, Daymond had to come up with out-of-the box ways to promote his products. Luckily, desperation breeds innovation, and so he hatched an idea for a creative campaign that eventually launched the FUBU brand into a $6 billion global phenomenon. But it might not have happened if he hadn’t started out broke – with nothing but a heart full of hope and a ferocious drive to succeed by any means possible.

Here, the FUBU founder and star of ABC’s Shark Tank shows that, far from being a liability, broke can actually be your greatest competitive advantage as an entrepreneur. Why? Because starting a business from broke forces you to think more creatively. It forces you to use your resources more efficiently. It forces you to connect with your customers more authentically and market your ideas more imaginatively. It forces you to be true to yourself, stay laser focused on your goals, and come up with those innovative solutions required to make a meaningful mark. John shows how we can all leverage the power of broke to phenomenal success.

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Remember, Prime Day is July 16th, starting at noon (PST). If you’re not already an Amazon Prime member, try it out FREE for 30-days.
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