By Joseph Williams, Word In Black
You got to make your own worlds…You got to write yourself in. — Octavia Butler
When the National Endowment for the Arts unveiled the list of 24 titles for its “Big Read” program tied to the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration, the message was unmistakable. Although five white women, three Black men, and one Native American woman and one Latina woman made the cut, the list is dominated by 14 white men.
Black women — whose labor, activism, intellect, and creativity have helped shape every chapter of this country’s democracy story — were nowhere to be found
The omission was glaring — and familiar. Rather than protest, Team Unerased has created its own best-books campaign centered on the pivotal role Black women have played in building this nation, before and beyond America’s Independence story.
Adversity and Justice
Storytelling by and about Black women is more than cultural preservation. It is civic education, political organizing, and historical correction. Black women’s voices are critical to understanding America and the long quest for freedom.
As we witness the dismantling of more than 60 years of racial progress, we launch Power Read 25, an initiative celebrating change agents through the ages. Stories of Black women, both revered and under-acknowledged, remind us that the quest for justice has always been punctuated by adversity. Again and again, Black women transformed resistance into resilience and turmoil into triumph.
The initiative begins with 25 biographies that bring the past, present, and future of Black women into America’s unfolding story of democracy. The titles, geared toward both adult and young readers, enable them to engage with often overlooked narratives that reveal Black women’s resistance, organization, and the change they sparked in the face of abominable repression.
Selected by a panel of civic, literary, and cultural leaders, Power Reads will illuminate achievement, resilience, social change, and intellectual rigor during the dark days of our nation’s halting march to racial equality. The featured protagonists will include widely revered and lesser-known historical figures, as well as contemporary voices who have shaped our past and the moments leading up to our current circumstances.
Look Deeper, Read Widely
The 2026 titles will be released in July, followed by a public convening in September and reading circles throughout the fall. We will focus on metropolitan Washington, D.C., for this initial campaign, although a nationwide Power Read will launch in early 2027.
As the country looks toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Power Read 25 invites our audience to look deeper, read more widely, and examine history through the lives, labor, creativity and courage of Black women.
History, after all, is not only etched in dates, monuments, or national milestones. It is found in lives. In choices. In stories.
What we read and whose lives we study shape awareness and inspire social change. Visit Unerased for more details.
Gwen McKinney is creator and campaign director of Unerased | Black Women Speak
This editorial was originally published in Word In Black.
