FOR GAZA'S CHILDREN | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation

When we prioritize our children, we are also prioritizing a world shaped by peace, safety, love and justice. When we protect our children, we are also protecting our most beautiful legacies and coveted traditions. When we invest in our children, we are also investing in our most audacious freedom dreams and our most impossible future worlds.

The children of Gaza, and indeed all of Palestine, are no different. Driven by this commitment, we have decided to assemble an anthology that prioritizes children. We hope to contribute to the present moment of radical resistance and revolutionary possibility by placing the lives, experiences, conditions, feelings, perspectives, and stories of the region's children at the center of our social, cultural, moral, legal, and political analysis. For this anthology, we have chosen to exclusively spotlight the voices of progressive Black and Jewish American writers. In foregrounding Black and Jewish identities, including those writers who identify as both Black and Jewish, we hope to refute several dangerous myths about Black and Jewish Americans on the question of Israel/Palestine. 

Editors Haki R. Madhubuti and Keith Gilyard are joining us on the Busboys stage to uplift the voices of the progressive Black, Brown, and Jewish writers who contributed to this anthology and expand on the importance of protecting and prioritizing children in the fight for liberation. Copies of the book will be available for purchase before, during, and after the event, and the editors will be signing following the program.

This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of FOR GAZA’S CHILDREN will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and WILL be livestreamed. 

We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books

Professor Haki R. Madhubuti is a best-selling poet, author, and educator. Widely regarded as one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), he is the founder and publisher of Chicago's Third World Press, the oldest independent Black book publishing company in the world (1967). In 2015, the publishing house expanded its mission as Third World Press Foundation. Madhubuti is also a co-founder of both the Institute of Positive Education (1969) and the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools (1998), an African-centered institution, which operates three schools in Chicago.

Madhubuti has authored more than 37 books including Think Black; Black Pride, with an introduction by Dudley Randall; and Don’t Cry, Scream! with an introduction by Gwendolyn Brooks, which sold over 75,000 copies in its first year; We Walk the Way of the New World; HeartLove; and Liberation Narratives are also three of his bestselling books of poetry. As an essayist, Madhubuti authored Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? The African American Family in Transition (1991), a book that was a national bestseller of over 100,000 copies. He has produced four albums/CDs with music, and his poetry and essays have been included in more than 100 anthologies His latest book, Taught By Women: Poems As Resistance Language (2020), pays homage to women who influenced him.

Madhubuti earned his Master of Fine Arts at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has been awarded five Honorary degrees. He has taught at Columbia College of Chicago, Cornell University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Howard University, Morgan State University, University of Iowa, DePaul University, and Chicago State University, where he founded and directed the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing; co-founded the first MFA in Creative Writing program at a predominately Black University; and co-founded the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent. Upon his retirement, Madhubuti was named University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Chicago State University.

His poetry has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he has won the American Book Award, Illinois Arts Council Award, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Madhubuti was awarded the Hurston/Wright Legacy Prize in poetry for his book, Liberation Narratives. Among his many awards, Madhubuti received the "Literary Legacy Award" from the National Black Writer's Conference. He was a recipient of the Pegasus Lifetime Achievement Award from the Poetry Foundation and is the 2024 awardee of the Mark Twain Award by The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. He was inducted into the Chicago Black Artist Hall of Fame, Class of 2024 by the Black Arts & Culture Alliance of Chicago. Madhubuti was also awarded BACC Black Excellence in Poetry Award for his book Taught By Women. Most recently, Madhubuti was honored by the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center with the “Living in her Legacy Lifetime Achievement Award” in recognition of a lifetime of service and exemplary art activism. Madhubuti has given poetry readings and conducted workshops in thousands of community cultural centers, libraries, bookstores, colleges, and universities on four continents and in almost 40 states in the United States.

Keith Gilyard is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English and African American Studies at Penn State University. The author or editor of numerous books, his works include African American Literature (edited with Anissa Wardi); Discourse in Black; The Promise of Language: A Memoir; and Impressions: New and Selected Poems. Gilyard is a former president of the National Council of Teachers of English and the recipient of two American Book Awards.

Host or Publisher Busboys and Poets