Reading the Classics: The Street, Anne Petry

Join us at Kindred Thoughts Bookstore for our flagship book club, Reading the Classics: The Street by Anne Petry! In our committment to reading and introducting classic Black literature, we dive into the powerful words of author Anne Petry as facilitated by our very own cultural historian, Michelle Black Smith. Let's come together to read this classic piece of Black literature. See you there!

About The Street:
With a new introduction from New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones, The Street was Ann Petry's first novel, originally published in 1946 and hailed by critics as a masterwork.

The Street tells the poignant, often heartbreaking story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.

Lutie is confronted by racism, sexism, and classism on a daily basis in her pursuit of the American dream for herself and her son, Bub. Lutie fully subscribes to the belief that if she follows the adages of Benjamin Franklin by working hard and saving wisely, she will be able to achieve the dream of being financially independent.

The first novel by an African-American woman to sell more than a million copies, its haunting tale still resonates today.

"Petry is the writer we have been waiting for; hers are the stories we need to fully illuminate the questions of our moment, while also offering a page-turning good time. Ann Petry, the woman, had it all, and so does her insightful, prescient and unputdownable prose."--Tayari Jones, New York Times Book Review

About Michelle Black Smith:
Michelle Black Smith is a writer, curator, educator, and cultural historian. Black Smith specializes in the material culture of the African Diaspora. She is particularly fascinated by the intersection of literature and art as it pertains to African American creative production. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Art History at Princeton University, and her Master’s Degree in Museum Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

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