What is Black Phoenix Ink ?
Black Phoenix Ink is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Newark, Delaware. We have the goal of providing Black children’s literature to Black kids that highlights positive representation and empowering racial storytelling.
Our process is simple. We collate Black stories written and told by African and diasporic authors that embolden and empower Black kids and teenagers, generally within the age range of 5-15. We encourage our youth to dream outside limiting social expectations and believe in themselves wholly and completely. We source these stories by organizing short story contests. Excitingly enough, we receive entries from Black people all over the world. Our volunteer editors review hundreds of submissions. They consequently narrow them down into the Top 10.
Our next step is sourcing and creating story illustrations for our anthology. We do this with the help of our volunteer illustrators. The anthology will contain ten (10) different stories by ten distinct illustrators.
All content creators, from illustrators to authors, will be fully recognized. We need all necessary anthology items completed by December 15th, 2020. (This encompasses both illustrations and fully edited stories.
Our timeline is contingent upon reaching our donation goal of $50,000. We’d like to get this children’s book manuscript submitted for publishing by late March 2021. Our final step would be distribution. We want to start shipping our free anthologies to kids starting in May 2021. With adequate donations, we aim to ship 10,000 copies of the book to Black children from underserved communities by December 2021. By December 2030, we intend to provide about 5 million books to Black children in the US, African countries, and all over the world. Our dream is to ensure as many Black children as possible have a mini library of 50 powerful and empowering short stories. We will give these kids 5 anthologies in the span of five years with each volume containing 10 positive Black short stories.
Why Black Phoenix Ink
The Rampant Issue of Miseducation
Black children are exposed to so many colonizing images in the media, from the matriarch workhorse to the nihilistic thug. They receive a crash course in negative images of blackness from television shows and through uninformed public opinion and misconceptions. Many public school districts around the country continue to rely on textbooks that push a Eurocentric narrative and have historically limited the inclusion of Black history. Many of these textbooks either dilute or gloss over the significance of Black individuals and the essential role they played in the history of the United States and in the world, or they erase our history altogether. Even the nation’s teachers continue to commit acts of white supremacy and racism by using the brutal history of slavery as a “creative way” to teach math. Like sponges, our children absorb and internalize these negative messages.
We believe that exposing Black children to positive literary representation is essential to solidifying a strong sense of identity from both an ethnic and human perspective. Literature that displays the full and magical spectrum of blackness is essential in forging a strong sense of groundedness, self-respect, and self-love.
Consciously Beautiful Writing = Emancipated Minds
The Power of Storytelling
There is a Zimbabwean proverb that says, “Until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
We believe that the power of affirmative language in poetry and fiction can dismantle prejudicial and limiting thinking. We know we can help amplify Black self-esteem if we provide our precious youth with a form of connection to their roots. Providing a counter-narrative to the prevalent Black stereotypes and caricatures is invaluable in this process. It is the first step towards creating a strong and self-loving Black society. We run short story competitions to collate stories that are rich in various aspects of Black culture to share with diasporic communities and international Black children.
Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity.
To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it.
When I say 'heirloom' many people think of jewelry. I think of stories and poems as beautiful heirloom pieces that can adorn the ears and the mind. Just like antiques, they're worth more as time goes on.
