Mildred D. Taylor, 1982

#BlackWriters Who Helped Shape My Storytelling

February 2, 2016

Mildred D. Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

My first encounter with #BlackGirlMagic changed my thinking as a reader and later, a #writer. 💜 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor was first published in 1976. I read it roughly six years later, as an eight year old ravenous for new books to read from the #library. It sparked the socio-political activist in me as a writer. This life, in the novel, that Cassie Logan and her family lived, full of #sexism, #racism, and lynchings came alive for me so vividly. As a little black girl in #Baltimore in the early 1980's, I experienced every emotion that Cassie felt as a little black girl in the early 1930's South, every danger, every fear. Looking back, the story was so relevant. Even today, sadly, it still is. That was a heavy experience for me as a little girl, only eight years old. It was also the first time I realized the black girl can be the hero of a novel. #BlackHistoryMonth #BlackWriters #BlackAuthors