Black Authors Festival in Sag Harbor will feature Tamron Hall, Marcus Samuelsson
The Black Authors Festival in Sag Harbor on Saturday will feature journalist and author Tamron Hall, left, and restaurateur and author Marcus Samuelsson. Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP; Brittainy Newman
Years before they started the Black Authors Festival in Sag Harbor, Darlene Williams and Verdel Jones were childhood friends in Central Islip, each forging a love of reading.
The women don’t remember exactly when they met, but each distinctly remembers reading helped them connect with people within their close-knit community and beyond.
“I feel like you open up ... someone's mind and soul, when you read their books ... when you read about the way that they think,” said Williams.
Today, the friends have transformed their early love of literacy into an event that seeks to celebrate and uplift Black authors while combating book bans that have affected a sizable number of Black titles. This is the second year the festival will be held.
“We want to show that there are ... Black people who are writing books, and they're writing ethical books and fun books and children's books,” said Williams.
The ticketed event will be held this Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Breakwater Yacht Club. It will feature guests such as journalist and author Tamron Hall and restaurateur and author Marcus Samuelsson.
Jones added, "When you see people that look like you, who are doing things that you might be interested in or not even know that you're interested in ... there's a vision, and there's a path for you."
A community children’s corner will also take place from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. that will include child author Parker Todd, and Crayola talking about loving the skin you're in with the company's skin tone crayon line. There will also be games, book giveaways, literary activities and life-size book characters.
An important part of the festival will be the declarations against banning Black books, the organizers said.
The American Library Association said efforts to censor titles in 2023 increased by 65% from 2022. The 2023 level is the highest the organization has documented, the association said.
Works with a focus on people from the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities represented roughly half — 47% — of restriction efforts, the organization said.
Moreover, book banning holds particular resonance for the festival because there was a time when reading among Black enslaved people was largely banned, the organizers said.
“We stamp out the possibility of reverting back to a time where we can no longer read and we should not read,” Williams said. “We're saying 'no' to that.”
In addition to writing books, Jones and Williams also work in the education field. Jones has been an educator on Long Island for more than 30 years, serving as a teacher and school counselor. She’s currently an administrator with the Plainedge school district.
Williams has been an adjunct lecturer at Suffolk County Community College and other places.
In the future, the duo would like to grow the festival — possibly expanding it to multiple days and attracting more people. They said they hope it will show the power of literacy to bring people from different walks of life together.
Williams said: “A goal is that this will transcend into an event where we all can come together and just be seen as human beings."
Education: Howard University
Tiffany Cusaac-Smith came to Newsday in 2023 after being a race and history reporter at USA TODAY, where she wrote enterprise and spot articles examining how the past shapes the present. Previously, she worked as the race and justice reporter at the USA TODAY Network of New York, covering issues such as criminal justice reform, housing, environmental justice, health care and politics. At The Journal News/lohud.com in Westchester County, she covered Yonkers, the state's third-largest city. She also worked at The Associated Press in Atlanta.
Honors and Awards: Criminal justice reporting fellowship with the National Press Foundation; New York News Publishers Association award for distinguished investigative reporting; Contributed reporting for Best of Gannett honor; Member of Table Stakes, a program funded by the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund and managed by the American Press Institute to transform local news.
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