Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature

Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life.

Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students.

Here, she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that inspired the stunning oratory of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the inventive artistry of Romare Bearden, and many more. Exploring these works through such themes as justice, rage, self-determination, beauty, joy, and mercy allows her to move from her aunt's love of yellow roses to Gil Scott-Heron's "Winter in America."

Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. She challenges us to reckon with our commitment to all the nation's inhabitants and our responsibilities to all humanity.

ISBN-13: 9781324022046

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Norton - W. W. & Company - Inc.

Publication Date: 08-02-2022

Pages: 288

Product Dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

Farah Jasmine Griffin is professor of African American and African diaspora studies and English and comparative literature at Columbia University. She is the author of Read Until You Understand, among other works. Recipient of a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 Legacy, Love, Learning 1

2 The Question of Mercy 15

3 Black Freedom and the Idea(I) of America 33

4 The Quest for Justice 69

5 Rage and Resistance 95

6 Death 125

7 The Transformative Potential of Love 147

8 Joy and Something Like Self-Determination 169

9 Cultivating Beauty 185

10 Of Gardens and Grace 209

Acknowledgments 219

Notes 223

Bibliography 235

Discography 243

Index 245