Welcome to the Reader of Black Genius: Prologue

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What's good, family?

How you guys doing out there?

Welcome to the Reader of Black Genius podcast where we learn about your favorite writers.

Favorite writers.

Derek.

I'm your host, Derek Young, bird extraordinaire and co owner of Mahogany Books.

This is the inaugural episode, the prologue, if you will, of a brand new podcast being launched on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network today.

I'm going to give you all a quick overview of what you can look forward to, as well as what I hope to accomplish.

But first, a little bit of business.

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Fantastic.

Awesome.

Okay, so now that we got that out the way, this is going to be different episode than what you can all expect.

So like I said, this is the inaugural prologue episode.

Basically what I want to do is to give you guys a quick overview rundown of what this podcast is about, what I'm hoping to accomplish, who you can look forward to seeing or hearing from on this podcast so that, you know, we can kind of basically set the foundation for where we're going.

What were some of my inspirations for doing this, and basically, you know, just give you guys a great foundation to move forward with.

So what I want to kind of lay out for you first is for this podcast, you can expect it to be about an hour, maybe an hour and a half if it gets to be a really good conversation.

But there's going to be four major components of the show we're going to talk about.

Well, what you can expect is I'll be inviting on authors, entrepreneurs, activists, artists, people that I admire, people whose work inspires me personally, people whose work is making a difference in our community, people's whose work and effort is culturally relevant and pushing forward progress for our folks.

Our people.

And with that, the things I want to be able to accomplish is, or talk about is, you know, number one, get an understanding of their origin story, understanding what their obstacles were, what their aha moments.

But more importantly, because this podcast is founded on literature, on books, reading Black geniuses, I want to find out about what books that these individuals read that inspired them, that shaped their perspectives, that helped form them into the people they are today.

We want to learn who impacted them.

So hopefully, maybe one of those books may be something that you want to pick up, that you want to read to help you as you go throughout your journey to discover your passion or further the goals that you're accomplishing right now.

So that's the first component of what we're going to be talking about, getting people's origin stories.

And of course I use origin story because I'm a huge nerd blurred.

So I love the superheroes.

And all that memes take apart is people's becoming.

They're often are for most individuals, a major shift moment.

Moments where the lights are turned on and they see clearly.

They understand what their passion is, they understand why they're placed here and what they want to accomplish.

And it just becomes about fighting through, grinding out their success, dealing with the failures, but remembering, but being able to get back up each and every day to work their gifts, to develop their.

Their.

Their talents and skills so that they can actually accomplish those things.

And that becoming piece is a major part of everyone's success story.

So I want to learn from these individuals what were their becoming moments, what books maybe helped them to become.

If it was a mentor, if it was a soldier, whatever it was that helped these individuals really take that next step to accomplish their goal.

We want to hear about that.

That's something I'm super excited about.

The third component of this podcast is leaving a legacy.

And of course, I design myself to be.

I hope that with everything I'm doing, I.

I want to be community first.

All right.

I see myself as a social entrepreneur.

The work that we do at Mahogany Books is really about giving back, creating a community space, making.

Creating an experience that allow people to come in, feel uplifted, feel impacted and empowered to go out and do and accomplish the great things that they want to accomplish.

So what are the.

That's my legacy.

That's the thing that when it's all said and done, hopefully there's been someone, if it's only one person that's been impacted by my efforts, that people feel like it's helped them to move forward in life and accomplish their goals.

So want to find out what are those things that people are working on right now that's about them leaving the legacy, about them impacting the next generation two generations, three generations from now, what are those things?

Whether it's their immediate family or the extended family or even the community.

So really want to get into that as well.

And of course there's a show wrap up where we really kind of get into the very last question is why do black books matter?

That's the one thing we want to make sure we ask every one of these individuals is for them, why does reading matter?

Why does reading a book written by a black author matter to them?

How has it impacted them?

How does it, how did it help them out?

So that's the major, those are the four major components of the show.

And to give you guys a brief overview of how that's going to go, I'm a kind of internally, well, not internally, I'm gonna do that for myself right now, just kind of give you guys a brief look at me, who I am, help you guys kind of hopefully understand and feel connected as we go through this journey of meeting all these great individuals that you can relate to me, I can relate to you, and together we can bring make this podcast something special where everyone feels like they're getting great value from it, that they're being entertained, that they're laughing, but more importantly that they feel like they're learning something from it.

And that is, it is again being impactful for them.

So how do I get into books?

That's usually the question I get from people.

How did you know?

We start Mahogany of books, myself and my wife.

My wife Ramonda is my co owner, my partner.

We've been married for 22, 23 years.

23 years coming up here shortly.

And how do we decide to open up Mahogany Books?

What was it for me personally?

We both have our, of course, separate stories that she's her own individual when it comes to it, with a very unique viewpoint that I think will be helpful for you guys to hear.

And of course we'll definitely have her on at one point, at some point.

But for myself personally, I am from dc, I'm from Southeast Washington DC and books have been.

Though I was not a reader for a good part of my life, books have always been a major component of my life.

My mom is a huge reader, you know, for me and my sister, she would always, always, always, you know, buying us books, you know, having us sit down during the summer reading newspaper articles and, you know, taking us to bookstores.

And the thing is, in south.

In Washington D.C.

the DMV area, it's an incredible area.

It's culturally rich.

A number of things to do, from the museums to the concerts to the festivals, and a one major piece of the DMV area, our bookstores.

And for us, black bookstores is a major, major component of our existence.

I just thought that's how it was everywhere.

And that's the interesting part of Ramonda's story, is that when we began dating and I visited her in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I was like, hey, where's the black bookstores?

And she was like, there are none.

That was something that was very eye opening to me.

So being.

Having a chance to go to black bookstores and just have them being an everyday part of life, I took them for, for granted.

It wasn't something that I really thought too much of until one day.

I'm an alumni of Bowie State University.

I went out one day, just kind of hanging out, walking through Landover Mall for all my old heads out there.

You guys remember Landover Mall?

Hanging out, walking around, and I come across this bookstore and I walk inside and I fall in love immediately.

I mean, from selling from floor to ceiling, nothing but books just attack.

I mean, not just fiction books.

I mean, you have history books, revolutionary books, poetry books, biography books, cookbooks, just every genre you could think of, books written by black folk.

And that was.

Even though I've been in black bookstores before, I'd never seen a bookstore done in this way, a black bookstore done like this.

It was just incredible.

I mean, it was something I had not.

I just never really.

It was eye opening.

I'm not even quite sure of the word to, to.

To apply to it.

But it really immediately like opened my eyes to the, like, the wide possibilities of things.

And for myself, I always wanted to be a business owner.

I just never knew what it was going to be.

I was going to Bowie State for business and I happened upon this bookstore as a.

I guess I was a sophomore at Bowie at that point and man, I immediately put in a job application Immediately began working there and it changed my life.

It was, it introduced me to so many books, to so many writers, there's so many topics and ideas that I really began to, you know, began.

Became immersed in poetry, became immersed in reading biographies and religious texts.

It just really kind of began the process of shaping a young mind of 19 years old at that moment, to become, grow into the person that I am today, to become maturing and think looking at things in different ways, to meet with older gentlemen, older women who would just pour into me.

It was just the most fantastic experience.

And that was a major part of my origin story that helped me to see, hey, you can run a business, a small business that was geared around community, that was focused on impacting people where they live.

You provide created jobs, provided for your family, but at the end of the day, you created a community space where people will come in and just be able to be lifted and grown and connect.

It was just the most phenomenal experience.

And at that moment, from then on, I knew I wanted to open up a bookstore that was just fantastic.

And in that time, I've read so many books, but there are three that I want to share with you guys today that just, that really kind of cemented for me what it is to be a social entrepreneur and how a bookstore could be used to really make a huge impact on people.

The first book I read, and this is part of, the, part of what we'll be doing with the podcast, is as a person is telling their origin story, we'll get to a point where there's a book that person read, whether they were 16, 19, 22 or 30.

We'll discuss in chronological order their origin story and when they read the book, what that book was and talk about it a little bit.

So for me, at this moment, I was 19 years old, I read the book Revolutionary Suicide.

Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P.

Newton.

This book, I just, I can't even describe to you guys what, what it, what it meant to me.

I have a top five books of all time.

They just impacted me.

This book is number one for me.

Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P.

Newton.

And in the beginning of that book, there's a manifesto that, that he wrote that talked about basically what you were willing to die for.

And in context, what's really interesting about that is during this time, 19 years old, I was living through the east coast, west coast beef.

And two of my favorite hip hop artists, of course at that time were Tupac and Biggie.

And to be a young person at that time and getting these News breaks of hearing about Tupac being shot, Biggie being shot, and just realizing that, wow, these two individuals that I just were so enamored with because of their music, it devastated me.

Like, it really.

It changed how I was even engaging with the form of hip hop and rap, the art form of hip hop and rap, it changed so much.

But then to come across this book, Revolutionary Suicide, with this in the background of understanding that there was these two guys, these two legends, these two giants that were murdered, that were no longer with us, and this gentleman here was talking about living, like actually going out.

And if you're going to.

To.

To die at some point, we all will.

What are you actually putting forth?

What are you giving?

How are you building?

How are you improving?

How are you helping people?

That's the idea of revolutionary suicide that I'm, you know, if I lose my life, I'm losing it in a revolutionary.

In a revolutionary act.

I'm losing it in a way that is actually helping people, changing things, progressing, and that helps to settle my spirit.

And that it wasn't just about the loss of lives of two black men.

For me, it was that you can actually go out here and do something important and impact people and do it in a way that was still, I guess, for me, that did not.

That felt authentic and original to who I was as a Gen X guy growing up in the city, that was, I mean, foundational for me.

And to understand that I could at that moment, as a person who wanted to be an entrepreneur, who aspired to be an entrepreneur, I could actually say, you know what I'm going to do, Run a business.

I'm gonna create a business that can actually impact people, that can change folk, and it can still be connected to art because words are immortal.

And if you're writing something or you're putting down something with emotion and heart and intention, those things last.

Those things reverberate throughout time.

And that's.

That was the lesson for me in that moment, that although Pac and Biggie were no longer with us, their music was still there, their words were still there.

It's just finding the right words, finding the words that was lifting up people and impacting people and helping people are the things that I wanted to put forth.

And that was the lesson that I got from that book, Revolutionary Suicide.

And it really began the gears to the thinking of how could I use art in a way through business connected to.

To help people, to create a life that was about revolution was a revolutionary act to help people and to empower people that's the first book, second book that I read.

And it was a.

Maybe a few years later, I think.

Yeah, I think I was actually.

I graduated college, I was married, so yeah, definitely a few years later, late 20s.

So I think maybe seven, eight years later, I read second book, my second book by Dr.

Claude Anderson.

I'd already read his book Black Labor, White wealth while I was in college as a business student, but I read his second book.

Well, my second book by Dr.

Claude Anderson, Powernomics.

I read that after joining our local NAACP chapter here, you know, where we, where we reside.

And we were reading Powernomics as a book club book, like it was part of one of the committees I was on for a while there.

And I started reading this book.

We had launched Mahogany Books.

We were online at that moment, but reading Power Nomics and reading the blueprint that Dr.

Anderson laid out for actually building power and political.

Building wealth and political power through business, through supporting black businesses, through creating a coalition and coalescing together.

It was instrumental in how we began to approach our partnerships, how we began to approach working with other vendors.

Because it became essential not that Mahogany Books didn't just be successful on its own, that it just didn't benefit Ramonda and I and, you know, our kid.

It was essential that what we did impacted other black businesses as well.

So how do we work with independent authors?

How do we work with black vendors to make sure that Mahaling Books is actually a platform for these individuals?

That was the second book that I read that in this moment really kind of helped to shape how we were moving to build Mahogany Books, how we wanted to, the vision of it to be, to be fulfilled.

And the core values is the better word for me, what the core values of Mahogany Books would be.

And Powernomics was a major, major book for me.

Reading that would help to create those core values for us.

The third book I want to share with you guys is Fuck this book by M.K.

asante Man.

And the thing is I, I, I love, love, love memoirs.

Memoirs are just one of my favorite genres to read.

I love learning from people.

I love.

I'm a introvert.

I'm a person who, you know, I'm not the person who's jumping out.

I'm not, you know, don't like being too front facing.

I love watching.

I love learning and I love being able to say, okay, well, I love being able to learn from other people's experiences so that I don't make those same mistakes or I can do things hopefully in a better way.

Without some of the, without some of the bumping into some of those pitfalls that occur throughout life.

So Memoirs for me is one of those books, one of those genres that I can read and just learn from so many different people and their perspectives and the way they, the ways that they went about life and living, living their lives.

So Buck is this book by M.K.

asante, incredible writer, creator, artists that reading this book, it confirmed to me 100% the impact of words in people's lives.

Because if you read this book, what you'll notice is, you know, he's growing up in Philly, he deals with a number of scenarios, but ultimately the thing that turns him around, it gets him to the point where he's able to, I move in a more positive direction is sitting down, as when he took a creative writing class, and his ability to use writing as therapy as his way to express himself as a young black guy with all this emotion, all this confusion, all this anger built up in his system that he doesn't know how to release, he doesn't know how to let go of.

And it's through the process of writing that he discovers his ability to work through those issues.

For him, that reading that book, reading that experience, it lit an even bigger fire for me that creating a bookstore, creating a place where books existed in a wide variety didn't matter.

A person's political ideology didn't matter.

The person's sex or gender or whatever didn't matter if the person was from the African diaspora, whether they're from the continent, whether from Washington D.C.

whether they're from Tulsa, Oklahoma or the Caribbean, if they're a person from the diaspora.

We want to present their books for the public to read.

It's up to the reader to pick up what book they want to pick up.

But we never know what that book means to a person, what that lived experience means to that per.

To another person.

And reading MK's book, Reading Buck, understanding that he was able to tell this story in a way and help to make it crystal clear the importance of reading, the importance of writing, and the power that those two things have to move a person from one place of thought to another, to move through whatever self doubt they may have about themselves, to break through any boundaries that they've put up for themselves.

That is the, the essential foundational power of art, but more specifically the power of words, the ability to manifest yourself, manifest things into existence.

And it was, I mean, just monumental for me.

So hope those three examples give you guys a bit of a, of a, an Example, and you know, of course this will be spread out more of a conversational way, but in a.

This be spread on in a more conversational way.

But what I want to help, what I'm hoping you guys get from this is that for each of these individuals, the people I've interviewed to date, those that are coming.

So for example, I've already interviewed Tony Browder.

Fantastic conversation.

I've interviewed Danielle Clayton.

I've interviewed Dante Stewart, incredible, incredible writer.

I've interviewed Clint Smith, I have Baba Coates, Paul Coates, founder of Black Classic Press, scheduled to interview, have these great, incredible people that I'll be talking to.

And for each and every one of them, there's three to five books written by black folks that help to shape their thinking.

And I'm super eager to hear what they are because as you just heard from me, those three books, and that's just a very small selection of them that were instrumental to helping me understand who I that at the end of the day, I wanted to be an entrepreneur that, that worked to help my community.

I wanted to be able to provider provide jobs for people.

But more importantly, I wanted to create a space, a community space for people to come in, to feel seen, to feel represented.

And all of that has morphed into, as a place for my kid to become in their own, you know, a mini mogul in the making here.

For this to be a place where me and my wife can work together and build an incredible life together and both feel fulfilled and excited about what we're able to accomplish in the world.

I mean, there's been so much that has come from this.

All those things were cemented for me through the books that I read.

And I'm excited to hear about the.

Hear from these individuals, to hear, learn about the books that they've read, because I'm hoping that they expose my eyes to new books that I need to be picking up and hopefully getting some information from.

So that's what you can expect.

At the end of the day, I want to introduce you to hopefully some new individuals, some new writers, some new entrepreneurs, help you find out, learn more about them, learn about what they're doing, find out about the books that have empowered them.

And maybe those books become books you add to your bookshelf that you want to read and you'll let me know what you think about those books.

And maybe we add those books to a book club, create a book club around it that we can all discuss together, of course, that we do at Mahogany Books.

So that's the core of the podcast, but the part of it that I want to make sure that we continue to.

That I continue to put.

That I continue to push forward.

Is this podcast as part of our activism?

It's a part of making books more proactive, to being more proactive, making bookstores more proactive.

The thing about bookstores is that, you know, most time we're waiting for people to come into the stores, waiting for you to find something that interests you to read.

But I want to find.

I want to find more ways to help these writers, these individuals, tell.

Get their stories out in front of you and tell their stories in their own voice.

Not.

Not from someone else.

But what is it for them?

What are the books that.

That.

What are these books saying to them?

Because they're written for us from our perspectives and how do we receive them?

What do they mean for us?

And, you know, disregard any of the outside noise that for some reason prevents our books from being part of American canon.

They're a part of the American canon.

Some of the greatest books written by Americans are by black folk.

And that's just the bottom line.

But for some reason, we.

It doesn't.

It's not taught that way.

So what I want to make sure this podcast does is.

Is make sure we talk about one.

First and foremost, these books are part of the American canon, and they are important parts of the American canon, and that every person should be reading these, and they should be all a part of the educational curriculum, and they.

None of them should be being banned.

It's all important.

You may not like it, you may not disagree with it, and that's fine.

That's your preference.

That's your freedom.

That's your right to do that.

However, we're not here to tell someone they can't tell their story.

It's up to you if you want to read it or not.

But we're not going to ban and take away people's rights and freedoms to do those things.

So that's part of what I want to make sure this podcast is doing is to promote and to provoke people to pick up these books.

I want to make sure that people know that we were sharing this information so we can break down, you know, borders and boundaries that's been set up by, you know, white supremacy, that people aren't.

Who are scared to learn our stories or worried about reading books by a woman.

We.

We want to disregard all the sexism.

We want to disregard all the homophobia.

We want to tear down all the xenophobia.

We want to we want to make sure that people, even in their internal self doubt whatever they're feeling about themselves.

That, that these books surpasses all of those things, that it opens their eyes up to all of those things so that we are accepting and welcoming of everything, that we're ok, that we can look in the mirror and say for ourselves, hey, you know what?

I'm okay and I love myself.

I'm not going to, you know, allow my self doubt to prevent me from accomplishing, you know, my goals, living out my passion.

I'm not going to let anyone else's homophobia stop me from living out my dreams and my, my goals to, to be true and authentic to myself.

That's a very important aspect of this podcast for me.

Because, you know, if we're saying we live in a country that is all about freedom and love and not love, well, yeah, if we live in a country that's all about freedom, we have a right to be free.

We have a right to live the life as we want to live it.

And I want to make sure that we are celebrating the books that help us do those things.

And I hope that makes sense.

So that's pretty much it.

Hope you guys are excited for this podcast.

I hope you guys are looking forward to these authors, to these entrepreneurs that I'm going to be interviewing.

I'm super excited for them.

I've already had again, like I said, some incredible conversations and I think there's a lot that you guys will take from this.

So the big thing is, you know, please, I'm open to the feedback.

Let me know how I'm doing.

This is something that I am going to be working at, trying to develop my skill set at.

I'm not, again, the most excitable person, but I'm going to work on that to make sure that these episodes are enjoyable, that I'm not just droning on and putting everyone to sleep.

We don't want any of that.

So please share back with me.

Let me know what you guys think.

Let me know if there are some writers that you guys will be interested in hearing from.

I'm definitely open to hearing that as well.

See if I could get some of those individuals scheduled for interview.

So we'll be getting this podcast released soon.

It's going to be, I've released on a monthly cadence, but of course, you know, we're also going to have other great shows on the Mahogany Books Podcast Network that you guys can listen to that will be dropping every other week as well.

So that's our show.

For today.

Remember to please check the show notes for a full list of the books that I discuss here today.

And of course, if you're interested in picking up one or more of these titles, you know we encourage you to visit our show sponsor.

Mahogany books.com is the premier destination for new, classic and bestselling Black books.

Our show would not be possible without the hard work of Shed Life Productions.

Lastly, the Reader of Black the Reader of Black Genius Podcast is a member of the Mahogany Books Podcast Network.

Check them out for other great shows like ours focused on books written for, by or about people of the African Diaspora.

We ask you to please like, review and share wherever you get your podcast today.

And peace.

Have a great day.

And remember, Black books matter.