It’s never too early to start talking to your kids about North Carolina pride. A new storybook, spearheaded by The NC African American Heritage Commission and published by UNC Press, celebrates our state’s African-American heritage in classic “A is for” form.
My N.C. from A to Z is a 32-page board book written by Michelle Lanier and illustrated by Dare Coulter. Each letter of the alphabet introduces an African American person or place who shaped North Carolina’s arts, culture, and social-justice legacy.
“B is for Black Wall Street,” one entry reads. “Black Wall Street is a term that describes historic Parrish Street, a four-block area in downtown Durham, N.C., where African American enterprise thrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”
Other pages introduce education and civil rights pioneer Charlotte Hawkins Brown; Freedom Hill, among the oldest towns chartered by free African Americans; and Thomas Day, a renowned nineteenth-century craftsman from Milton.
Lanier is an author and scholar rooted in what she calls Afro-Carolina. She advocated for legislation to create the NC African American Heritage Commission, and after serving as its founding director, she became the first African-American director the N.C. Division of State Historic Sites. She also teaches at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies.
Coulter, an N.C. State graduate, is an award-winning illustrator, sculptor, and public artist who specializes in large-scale sculptures and murals, and her work here looks vibrant and bigger than life. She has previously illustrated children’s books such as Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and You Are My Sunshine.
My N.C. from A to Z is available for $14.95 from UNC Press.
bhowe@indyweek.com
