On Sept. 12, the New York-based Black Authors Festival will be held in Atlanta for the first time.
Founded in 2022 by Darlene Williams, the event will spotlight and celebrate Black authors. This year’s theme is “The Right to Write,” centering the issues of book banning and literacy.
“The goal is to spread [the festival] across the country. And we wanted to spread it to Atlanta first,” Williams said.
Williams said Georgia holds the second-highest recorded number of lynchings in the country between 1882 and 1968. “I thought that it would be great to continue the work of raising awareness, because the more you know, the more you grow,” she said.
Nationally recognized by USA Today in 2024 as one of the Top Best New Festivals in the Nation, the Black Authors Festival will feature author talks, curated conversations, book signings, live cultural programming, and an honoring ceremony.
The 2026 Atlanta honorees are Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant, Dr. Karri Turner Bryant, Doreen Spicer-Dannelly, Dr. Rashad Richey, Dr. Egypt Sherrod, and Brandi Harvey. The festival’s beneficiary is A Father’s Love Personal Development and Community Services, a nonprofit founded by William’s husband, Maurice L. Williams, which supports Black children growing up without fathers academically, socially, and emotionally.
Williams said another important part of the festival is to amplify the importance of being able to write and have freedom of speech. The surge in book banning at school and public libraries is another issue the festival will focus on.
According to a report by PEN America, 36% of all books banned in the 2023-2024 school year featured characters or people of color. Data on the Black Authors Festival website from the Nation’s Report Card, the Sentencing Project, and Literacy Mid-South shows a connection between low literacy for Black youth and high rates of incarceration.
“One of the things that I found in my studies is that when literacy rates are up, crime is down. That transcends race, religion, creed, you name it,” Williams said. “Because I know that Black men are targeted more, if we can make reading sexy, and it increases literacy and crime goes down, I think across the board, we have the majority of people who would agree that that’s a better quality of life for all. So that’s a part of the intentionality of the Black Authors festival.”
“We have an opportunity now to come together and have an amazing time for a great cause, and once we’re done, we get to go back to work and make it all count for something, and go down in the books, leaving a legacy, so that now those after us can’t say that we didn’t do what it is that we were supposed to do,” Williams said.
Get tickets to the Atlanta festival here and see other events happening around the nation this year.
