Best selling authors Isabel Wilkerson and Damon Tweedy share stories of resilience and triumph at the Austin African American Book Festival.

About this Event

New York Times bestselling authors Isabel Wilkerson and Dr. Damon Tweedy will head up the fourteenth annual Austin African American book festival. The event will be held on June 27, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and for the first time will be a virtual event. The Festival remains free and open to the public, but attendees must register on Eventbrite.

This year’s festival falls on the birthday of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Our festival theme, We Wear The Mask, pays homage to one of Dunbar’s most famous works. Like the poem of the same name, the festival will explore the masks and methods we employ to deal with the social hierarchies, challenges to identity and implicit biases we must face to succeed within the broader society.

For more information, contact the Austin African American Book Festival, at [email protected].

Book Festival Schedule

10 am

On Call with Dr. Tweedy

Join us for a discussion with Damon Tweedy, MD, author of Black Man in A White Coat, as he discusses the high stakes of racial bias in healthcare. Dr. Tweedy offers insight on how Black patients can navigate the difficult terrain of race and medicine.

11 am

Origins of Our Discontent

Isabel Wilkerson, author of the acclaimed The Warmth of Other Suns, is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and National Humanities Medal awardee. She challenges our thinking yet again with her upcoming book Caste: The Origins of our Discontent. Wilkerson examines the rigid caste systems of the past, here and abroad, that have shaped our current understanding of race and the unwritten rules that continue to breed societal inequities.

Noon

We Wear The Mask: The Voice of Paul Laurence Dunbar

This year’s festival falls on June 27th and marks the birthday of renowned poet and novelist Paul Laurence Dunbar! Celebrate with us, as Austin Community College professor Dr. Mark Cunningham facilitates a lively dialogue focusing on the thematic influence of Dunbar’s life, his poetry, and his relevance in our current racial climate.

1 pm

The Black Covid-19 Index: Valuing and Preserving Our Stories

American Library Association recognized librarian and archivist kYmberly Keeton, guides us in a creative writing workshop to help us chronicle our unique experiences during the coronavirus pandemic. Participants and others are invited to submit their stories, images, audio, and video to be published and archived in the Black Covid-19 Index.