A Big Day for Book News
Copies, reviews, and more.
For more than half a decade, I’ve worked on the project that became Our Trespasses. When the UPS driver knocked on my door Saturday afternoon, he delivered an enormous milestone: a real, actual book.
It is a remarkable feeling to touch the product in the world, rather than to see it on a screen. I’m excited for y’all to get your hands on it also.
Booklist Review:
Booklist is the national journal of the American Library Association. Here’s their review of Our Trespasses:
“James Baldwin once said that urban renewal means Negro removal. Baptist minister Jarrell’s passionate look at the negative impact of the 1960s urban renewal on one city, Charlotte, NC, is proof positive of Baldwin's observation. Jarrell's book focuses on the role of white churches in one Black district of Charlotte, dubbed Brooklyn, which the author calls “a living, breathing example of Black brilliance and resilience in the heart of the Jim Crow South.” Charlotte city council viewed Brooklyn differently though, adopting a resolution stating that the neighborhood was “a slum, blighted, deteriorated or deteriorating area appropriate for an urban renewal project.” Cue the bulldozers, as Jarrell examines in granular detail how a series of events that seem in retrospect so clearly cruel could have taken place, resulting in gentrification, which he loathes and classifies as an example of white supremacy. Dispossessed Black people are the victims of this commodification of land for “the purpose of profit,” and, as told by Jarrell, theirs is a searing cautionary story that demands attention.” (Reviewed by Michael Cart)
Release Party: Tuesday, Feb 20, we will celebrate the release of Our Trespasses at the former Grace AME Zion Church in the old Brooklyn neighborhood. The church is one of four buildings remaining from before urban renewal. Today, it is lovingly stewarded by the Brooklyn Collective. Here’s a brilliant mural from Charlotte artist Abel Jackson next to the front steps of the sanctuary:
The mural grabs three boys out of this picture from the destruction of Second Ward High School during the Brooklyn Urban Renewal project:
Now rather than its destruction, they are looking at historic luminaries of their neighborhood and its legacy: entrepreneur Thad Tate, medical doctor J.T. Williams, and newspaper publisher William C. Smith.
Jackson told historian Pamela Grundy “Before you know the fullness of our history, there’s a concentration on destruction,” he explained. “What men like these were doing and the profoundness of what they were doing – I missed out on it because I was just focused on the destruction.”1 Arrive early on Feb 20 to spend some time enjoying the mural and the historic building.
Back to the release party: Feb 20, 7-9 pm. The Grace, as the building is known now. Tickets are in short supply already. Register now using the button below.
Paid Subscribers: I’m still working on the details for a fun gathering about a month after the release of the book. You’ll get those details soon. Not a paid subscriber? Upgrade today.
Coming Wednesday: I’ll begin publishing chapter 1 in parts, beginning Wednesday.
One more note: I’ve been listening to Bird every day for weeks now. He sounds fresh 75 years later.
Pamela Grundy wrote a small but important book on Black history in Charlotte. Legacy: Three Centuries of Black History in Charlotte was published in 2022 by QC Nerve, a local weekly paper. Grundy has been a friend of my work, and reviewed several drafts while it was being produced. I’m grateful for her influence and her good work.