CSAD CELEBRATES BLACK HISTORY MONTH
In honor of Black History Month, the Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora (CSAD) at Georgia State University in Atlanta, in partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), presents an epic virtual Global Read-A-Thon streaming live from GPB studios in Atlanta. CSAD will bring together the U.S. Embassy in Banjul, The Gambia; The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany; UNEB State University of Bahia, in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil; University of Media Arts and Communication in Accra, Ghana; Consulate General of Canada to the United States in Atlanta; with additional U.S. partners the Djimon Hounsou Foundation; Kennesaw State University; Scripps College; University of Kentucky, and Rice University to celebrate books from Africa and its diaspora.
Past supporters or participants of the Read-A-Thon have included the Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) at Georgia State University, Centro de Estudios Afrodiaspóricos (CEAF) at Universidad Icesi in Cali, Colombia, the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, and Atlanta colleges like Spelman, Morehouse, and Agnes Scott.
Notable U.S. authors who have participated in past CSAD Read-A-Thons include best-selling authors Edwidge Danticat and Tayari Jones.
Roots, Migration, Journeys
For the third year in a row, the CSAD Global Read-A-Thon honors literature from Africa and its diaspora. This year the Read-A-Thon focuses on roots and migration journeys that have moved people across towns, countries, and oceans. We will explore narratives of journeys across the African diaspora such as the transatlantic passage from West Africa to the Americas that transported 12.5 million enslaved Africans, the Great Migration where six million African Americans moved from the South to the North, and diverse migrant experiences across regional borders spanning Africa, Europe, Asia, and beyond.
2025 Read-A-Thon Host
Award-winning former CNN Anchor and White House Correspondent
“When I look back, books have always been part of the arc of my life. From the time I was a child, my parents ensured my history was not just the living history of our everyday lives, but the history that stretched back centuries, to our Black ancestry. Our resilience, pride, tragedies, and triumphs were all in the books that filled our home. Today, I make sure I pass on that legacy of reading and learning to my own daughter.”
Special Guests
Actor: Djimon Hounsou
Djimon Hounsou is a two-time Academy Award-nominated actor for his work in Ed Zwick’s Blood Diamond (2006) and Jim Sheridan’s In America (2002). Born in Benin, West Africa, Hounsou’s breakthrough performance was as an African who leads an uprising to regain his freedom in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997). In 2019, he founded the Djimon Hounsou Foundation (DHF), which aims to reconnect the African Diaspora with the motherland and combat Modern-Day Slavery & Human Trafficking.
Journalist: Monica Pearson
Award-winning media icon Monica Pearson is the first woman and first woman of color to anchor the daily evening news at the leading Atlanta television station, WSB-TV, where she was a mainstay for 37 years.
Featured Authors
Author, Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Hartley Burr Alexander Chair in the Humanities at Scripps College in California.
Notable works include Village Weavers, What Storm, What Thunder, Harvesting Haiti, and Spirit of Haiti
“What is invisible and yet still lives is more powerful than monuments or words engraved in stone.”
Author and Professor of Creative Writing and English at Rice University in Texas. Winner of the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and recipient of the 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard.
Notable works include Long Division; How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America; and Heavy: An American Memoir
“The presence of all those books, all that laughter, all our lies, and your insistence I read, reread, write, and revise in those books made it so I would never be intimidated or easily impressed by words, pronunciation, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and white space.”
Author, Professor of English and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky, and Affrilachian Poet.
Notable works include Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers; Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York; Isaac Murphy: I Dedicate This Ride; and Masked Man, Black: Pandemic & Protest Poems
“If you don't tell your story, somebody else will.”
MIGRATION IN THE MODERN ERA
Today, migration continues to play a crucial role in shaping the African diaspora. According to a 2022 Pew Research Center study, nearly one-in-ten Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, people from the Caribbean and Africa are the largest populations.
Migration not only shapes identities but also fosters a sense of cultural unity and shared heritage across the African diaspora. The Read-a-Thon reaffirms CSAD's commitment to promoting cultural enrichment through literature and education. The initiative serves as a platform for engaging global audiences in critical discussions on African and diasporic histories, traditions, experiences, and practices.
A LOOK AT NOTABLE HISTORIC EVENTS
2025 Read-A-Thon Partners
“The CSAD Global Read-a-Thon 2025, Roots: The Journey of Us” was made with support from the Mellon Foundation. Additional support came from the following Georgia State University entities: Africana Studies, the John B. and Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters; English Department; Majorie F. Knowles Chair in Law; Georgia State University Library; The School of Film, Media & Theater in the College of the Arts, and GSU TV.
Contact Us
Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora
Mailing address:
College of Arts & Sciences
P.O. Box 4038
Atlanta, GA 30302-4038