Ashanté Reese, author of Gather, in conversation with Charlene Carruthers

@yespleasebooks is thrilled to celebrate author Ashanté Reese and her new book Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness!

Charlene A. Carruthers will join Ashante M. Reese in a generative discussion of Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness which argues for a vision of food justice that centers knowledge and traditions that already exist in Black communities and invites us to embrace them as the foundation of nourishment.

This event will take place in-person at the Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303.

This event is free and open to the public with registration.

Doors open at 6pm, book talk will begin promptly at 6:30pm followed by a book signing.

About the Author

Dr. Ashanté M. Reese is an award-winning author, anthropologist, and teacher. Weaving together food justice, geography, and care, she offers stories about the practices that sustain and free us.

Her first book,(UNC Press, 2019), developed a theory of how anti-Blackness constrains urban residents’ choices and how they then respond to those constraints through placed-based efforts to practice self-reliance. That book won the 2020 Best Monograph Prize from the Association for the Study of Food and Society and the 2020 Margaret Mead Award jointly awarded by the Association of American Anthropologists and the Society for Applied Anthropology.

Her second book, , is a volume co-edited with Hanna Garth published by University of Minnesota Press in 2020. A comprehensive look at Black food culture and the various forms of violence that threaten its future, Black Food Matters offers critical perspectives on how to think about access, privilege, equity, and justice. Black Food Matters received honorable mention recognition for the Eduardo Bonilla-Silva outstanding book award presented by the Division of Racial and Ethnic Minorities of the Society for the Study of Social Problem.

Dr. Reese’s most recent book, (W.W. Norton, 2026), brings together several things she’s dedicated much of her career to—food, community, sacred rituals—to explore what food justice movements can learn from the everyday ways Black folks gather around food.

She is currently at work on her next book, The Carceral Life of Sugar, which explores the spatial, economic, and metaphorical resonance of the plantation in the early 20th century convict lease system in Texas and the ongoing significance of sugar in everyday (Black) life.

There are many other credentials that you can find through a quick google search. But what Dr. Reese really wants you to know is that at her core, she sees herself as a conduit and a gatherer: a bridge between scholarship and community, past and future, spirit and material worlds; and someone who brings people, stories, and ideas together. She is committed to research and writing that honors collective memory, imagines freedom, and makes space for tenderness and possibility.

About the Conversation PartnerCharlene A. Carruthers (she/her) is a writer, filmmaker, community organizer, and Black Studies PhD Candidate at Northwestern University. Her work spans more than 20 years of community organizing across racial, gender and economic justice movements.A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her work as an artist is to honor ancestors across the diaspora and interrogate ongoing work towards collective liberation. Charlene wrote and directed The Funnel, a short film, which received the Queer Black Voices Award at the 35th Annual aGLIFF Prism Film Festival. Charlene also directed La Salida, a short film co-written by Deivid Rojas and produced by Full Spectrum Features. She is an inaugural Marguerite Casey Presidential Freedom Scholar, 2024 Northwestern University Presidential Fellow, and 2024 Center for Racial Justice Fellow at the University of Michigan.She is the founding National Director of BYP100, a national organization of young Black organizers working through a Black queer feminist lens. In addition to being a highly sought-after speaker, educator, and facilitator, Charlene is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (Beacon Press). She is an enthusiastic global traveler and believes that food is the best way to learn about people and culture.

About the Venue / Accessibility

Masks are strongly encouraged and provided by yes please community partner Mask Bloc Atlanta

The Auburn Avenue Research Library is ADA accessible with automatic door openers and ADA-complaint restrooms.

Free parking is accessible via the Courtland Street lot. Please park and enter the library to receive a guest pass to place on your dashboard. There are three wheelchair accessible parking spots.

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