On a rainy Sunday afternoon, readers of all ages gathered at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture to talk about books. The One Maryland One Book program had returned to in-person programming after a pandemic pause.

Lindsey Baker, executive director of Maryland Humanities, calls the One Maryland One Book program “Maryland’s biggest book club.” This is not your mother or aunt’s book club, where the wine, not reading, was more the focus. The OMOB program hopes to engage readers so that books can serve as a conduit for difficult conversations.

The OMOB program has been in existence for 15 years through sponsorship from the Maryland State Library Association.

This year’s OMOB selection is “What’s Mine and Yours” by Naima Coster. Coster’s novel focuses on the multigenerational struggle for identity and race in North Carolina, when Black students are integrated into the a mostly white school on the opposite side of town. Maryland Humanities is supporting a book tour throughout the state for the author, which kicked off at the Lewis Museum.

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The first stop on the tour was moderated by the museum’s Director of Interpretation, Collections and Education, Izetta Mobley.

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Two people talking about books can range from endlessly fascinating to akin to watching paint dry. On this spectrum, Mobley and Coster’s discussion was fascinating. The knowledge that Mobley brought to the discussion, from her academic research in African American History and her personal experiences as a young Black girl in private school, brought depth and care to the conversation.

Coster was thoughtful in response, and affirmed how special it was to speak with someone like Mobley who has clearly taken the time with the text.

The talk contained several plot spoilers and moved to what integration means now when public schools are more segregated than before Brown v. Board of Education. An audience member asked, “What can school integration look like?” and lamented the history in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, where said “bussing didn’t work.”

Novelists don’t often have concrete answers. Fiction is meant to operate within the imagination, though all imagination is still constrained by reality. Coster was clear that she may not have the answer to such a daunting question, but she pointed the questioner to the work of Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose work on school segregation she credits as inspiration for the book.

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Hannah-Jones put together a two-episode story for the public radio program “This American Life” about school integration in the town where Michael Brown lived. The episode features live recordings from a meeting where white parents lament the inclusion of Black students for fear of sullying their children’s school’s reputation. Coster’s book deals closely with what is gained and lost when students are forced into segregated schools for the betterment of their education.

As the OMOB tour continues around the state, the value of the program is clear: Communal reading in homes, cafes or even museums can invite deeper reflections on the world we live in. The goal of OMOB is to “flex your empathy muscles” as Baker said in her introduction to the talk. With the help of literature, hard questions can become meaningful conversations.

Readers still have time to catch Coster on her tour around the state this week. Maryland Humanities has also created reader’s guides and teacher’s guides so that people can bring these discussions to their own book clubs.

imani.spence@thebaltimorebanner.com

Imani is an Arts and Culture writer with a background in libraries. She loves to read, hike and brag about her friends.

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