by Eden Turner, Nashville Banner
June 12, 2026
At the Nashville Black Literacy Coalition’s silent reading parties, officially named “Well Read: The Silent Reading Experience,” readers can pick up a book, chat with their neighbors and meet someone new. Around 60 people came to an event in February, coalition founders Tiffeni Fontno and Eno Richardson said, and it’s been a great way to engage residents in places that are owned by and support the Black community, like the Loading Dock in North Nashville.
The first silent reading party was held at All People Coffee and 30 people attended. As the coalition hosted more events, more people came out to connect with their neighbors and soak in the warming, welcoming and intergenerational atmosphere. Writers, educators and more all sit together and enjoy each other’s company, then leave and spread the word to their friends and loved ones.
This is one of several efforts across Nashville to promote literacy within the Black community, ensure culturally-responsive literature is available to residents and map what Black literacy looks like using data and residents’ stories.
Reading is a skill
The Nashville Black Literacy Coalition (NBLC) started at a conference on Black education held by the Possibility Project at Vanderbilt two years ago.
That’s where Fontno met Richardson, an educator, and shared the idea she had for a project to increase literacy within the Black community and connect organizations doing similar work. Richardson was immediately on board and shared her idea to create social silent reading events. The two worked with other experts and the idea grew into NBLC.
Fontno said some of the barriers to access when it comes to literacy in Black communities is historical and systemic racism. There is an underlying gap in access to reading materials and an understanding of how literacy works.
“There’s a method to this,” she said. “It’s not just handing a kid a book and [knowing] they’ll be OK. [Literacy] is a relationship and a science.”
Richardson told the Banner that in Black communities, there can be a lack of instructors trained in systematizing literacy. While learning to read is attainable, she said the issue comes in when people forget that reading “has to be intentionally and systematically taught.”
Otherwise, students can develop literacy gaps that are then oftentimes not addressed later. In more affluent communities, parents can hire a private tutor to help their children improve reading skills. But some parents of color don’t have the means for that.
Culturally relevant materials are important to increasing literacy because people want to read stories about things they can relate to and care about. Richardson said having better access to these resources can also make someone a better reader.
Creating solutions
As Robin Griffin’s twin sons grew older, she made sure they had a good grasp of literacy early on. They received books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, and the family’s collection of books grew as her sons became more interested in reading.
In 2021, she began graduate school at Tennessee State University and mistakenly registered for a nonprofit class. After learning more about nonprofit organizations, Griffin realized she could create her own. That year, she turned her hashtag, “A to Z Learning Club,” into a nonprofit to help families in her community.
Griffin began doing research and learned that, at the time, around 10 percent of children’s books featured at least one Black primary character, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center. She began posting pictures and videos of her sons reading on Instagram with her hashtag to share that other parents could help their children discover a love for reading, too.
Her organization has an array of stories in its catalog, including books in Spanish and Vietnamese, books featuring characters of all ethnicities and backgrounds, and books written by Black and Brown authors. She also hosts an imagination library that encourages students to use their creativity to improve their literacy skills, and “A to Z Family,” a program that loops parents in and helps the entire family bond and create better literacy habits.
Last year, Griffin received a grant from Read in Color that gave her materials to build little free libraries featuring culturally affirming books in Nashville’s communities of color, specifically in places where people can connect — such as community resource centers, small businesses, barber shops and beauty salons.
So far, she’s built one at the East Nashville indoor playground Play All Day, and hopes to have more popping up in East and North Nashville and at the McGruder Center later this year. Griffin also gives community partners a $225 gift card to Alkebu-Lan Images, the only Black-owned bookstore in Nashville.
Griffin told the Banner that a lot of families in the communities she serves aren’t interested in the books that are easily accessible because the children can’t relate to them.
“The first thing people say is, ‘I don’t like it,’” she said. “We hear that all these children don’t like to read and can’t get into books. It’s not their fault. It’s because they don’t see books around them.”
To solve this problem, Griffin brings books to her community and helps her neighbors find books that interest them. This engagement has encouraged families to start thinking about their relationships to reading and how they began when they were younger.
NBLC is doing the same — Vanderbilt University student Ryan La Berrie and the university’s GIS Lab helped Fontno and Richardson create an interactive map to map what Black literacy looks like in Nashville and find ways the organization and its partners can solve literacy gaps more strategically.
Using the MNPS school clusters to separate various areas of Nashville, the map displays various data variables and highlights literacy organizations, libraries, schools, wireless hotspots and reading efficacy data.
La Barrie told the Banner it took the team more than a month to gather and upload the data. In total, the map features around 1,000 data points across the city.
Fontno and Richardson hope the map will help bring more community resources together and highlight stories of how and where literacy impacted residents.
“It’s one thing to have data and it’s another thing to have actual stories to give context to the data that we’re seeing,” Fontno said.
Bringing the community together
What the coalition has achieved so far couldn’t have been done without community partners, Fontno and Richardson said.
With the help of business owners, Black-owned spaces, community-based organizations, and advocates like Griffin, NBLC has begun to serve as an incubator of ideas for solutions and programs that can be implemented throughout the community.
NBLC also hosts a convening for community members to discuss literacy in Nashville’s Black communities, and from these discussions, many more program ideas have emerged.
“We’re learning that partnership brings learning and awareness to the state of literacy for Black people in Nashville,” Richardson said. “[We want to] be a network hub to bring people together to think about ideas as well.”
In her community, Griffin said she’s known as the book lady. She’s always recommending new books for her neighbors to read. She sees herself as a midwife of literacy in her community, similar to how author Jessie Redmon Fauset is known for being a midwife of the Harlem Renaissance and connecting communities through her work. Through her programs, Griffin has redefined her relationship to reading and found her voice.
“I wanted to be able to connect families and I feel like my community sees that,” Griffin said. “They see me having books and working with community partners to get access to books — not just any type of book, but also Black and Brown books for children. I feel like my community is very receptive and inviting.”
Recommended reading
NBLC and A to Z Learning Club have two events the community can attend later this summer.
On July 11, Griffin will be hosting “Building Our Own Stories,” an author read-aloud where families will learn how to build their own stories and archive them. NBLC’s next convening, “Ink, Imagination and Possibilities,” will be held on July 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at American Baptist College.
The Banner also asked the sources included in this story to recommend some of their favorite books.
Robin Griffin:
- “Fly Girl: A Memoir” by Ann Hood
- “Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir” by Ashley C. Ford
- “All About Love” by bell hooks
- “Backtalker: A Memoir” by Kimberlé Crenshaw
Tiffeni Fontno:
- “Rest is Resistance” by Tricia Hersey
- “How the Word is Passed” by Clint Smith
- “Sky Full of Elephants” by Cebo Campbell
- “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
- “I Am Every Good Thing” by Derrick Barnes
Eno Richardson:
- “Americana” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi
- “Black Cake” by Charmaine Wilkerson
- “Look Both Ways” by Jason Reynolds
- “The Crossover” by Kwame Alexander
Ryan La Barrie:
- “The Color of Law” by Richard Rothstein
- “Expecting Inequity” by Khiara Bridges
- “Why We Can’t Wait” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and Its Overthrow, 1979-83” by Maurice Bishop
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