Teigha VanHester leads discussion during the Books and Breakfast event. Photo courtesy of Victory Sampson.
ISABELLA AMBROSE | STAFF REPORTER | iambrose@butler.edu
The Hub for Black Affairs and Community Engagement (the Hub) partnered with the MLK Center to host its first Books and Breakfast event of the 2024-25 academic year on Oct. 12.
The event spotlighted adrienne maree brown’s book Loving Corrections, a collection of memoirs on power, healing, imagination and love. brown suggests that love, the primary message of the book, should be used as an activist strategy because it fosters community and inclusivity.
The theme for this year’s Books and Breakfast events is “‘Imagining Black Futures.”
Alexis Newell, the program and administrative coordinator for the Hub, said that the goal of Books and Breakfast is to create an inclusive community.
“[The Books and Breakfast events] build intergenerational communities that empower and uplift one another, while engaging in the Black intellectual tradition,” Newell said.
Teigha VanHester, an assistant professor of race, gender and sexuality studies and faculty co-director for the Hub, said that the event started in 2016 following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Hands Up Inc. in Ferguson began the Books and Breakfast event, and the Hub’s then-director and founder Terri Jett brought the event to Butler.
VanHester, who facilitated the discussion during the event, said that love remained the main reason brown’s book was chosen.
“I just wanted people to read this [and] think about love in a different way, as something that is an opportunity for them to give to others without sacrificing themselves,” VanHester said.
Critique, another topic that brown considers in their book, inspired meaningful conversations about the connection between critique and love.
VanHester said that critique does not have to come from a place of opposition, but it can originate from a place of love instead. Thus, critiquing someone can be healing.
“It’s a wonderful feeling to know that [you can] love purely and wholly, even if it’s from a distance,” VanHester said.
During the event, community members, including Butler students and alumni, shared breakfast and discussed the book. In a whole group discussion, attendees shared how they related the book’s message to their own lives. Topics of childhood, racism, capitalism, wellness and truth sparked long discussions.
Junior multilingual studies major Victory Sampson is a student apprentice for the Hub. He stressed the importance of a community where these topics can be discussed.
“There was just space made, and I think that is really important for marginalized individuals and people that are looking to aid marginalized individuals in more liberation by unpacking their own internalized supremacy,” Sampson said.
In order to continue building this inclusive space, the Hub will be hosting its next Books and Breakfast event at the MLK Center on Nov. 2, featuring Jonah Winter’s book Lillian’s Right to Vote.
