Hosts Emma Jackson Ford ("Bookwoman"), O B Hill, historian and bookseller, and Patricia Welch ("Library Lady") read the poetry and play audio clips of the Poetry of Langston Hughes, Walter D. Myers, Charles R. Smith Jr. and others.

With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to Portland, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

Chosen as this year's "Eveybody Reads" selection, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky received the 2008 Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change, and has been hailed as one of the Best Novels of 2010 by the Washington Post, a Top 10 Book of 2010 by The Oregonian, a Top 10 Buzz Book of 2010 by the Boston Herald and named a Top 10 Debut of 2010 by Booklist. Heidi was nominated for an 2011 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Debut.

African-Americans in Sports.

Dr. Thabiti Lewis, author of Ballers of the new school : race and sports in America, will share insights into the realities of race in sport culture. Ballers of the New School is one of the first and best books to come along that effectively explains contemporary athletes and the public response to them. It challenges the well-worn narrative of sport as America's most significant site of racial progress by scrutinizing the true role of sport in mobilizing and shaping definitions, social relations, and public life. American sport culture performs and propagates rituals, symbols, and expressions of fear and difference that sustain racism, and notions of racial supremacy and block bridges to racial progress.

Dr. Lewis is the guest speaker at the opening of "Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience." This travelling exhibit, presented by Multnomah County Library, tells the story of black baseball players over the past century and a half. The exhibition also looks at the origins of the sport and the history of baseball and race relations in Oregon.

http://www.multcolib.org/events/baseball

 Hosts Patricia Welch, Emma Jackson Ford and O.B. Hill, interview Lillian Whitlow about her book A Soldier Without a Country: Based on the Life of Sgt. Carlis Calvin.  

"A Soldier Without A Country tells the story of Sgt. Carlis Calvin's struggle to survive after he was given a dishonorable discharge by his captain, after he was accused of stealing approximately $3.00 worth of food from his mess hall. After he served several months in the stockade, he was stripped of his medals and uniform and was told not to come back on the post again. He endured hardships for forty-seven years. In 1996 President Bill Clinton restored his honorable discharge and his medals were returned."