Jamilah Lemieux — Black. Single. Mother.
Writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux discusses her personal and analytical exploration of Black single motherhood in America, at Politics and Prose.
Why we picked this
Lemieux is a sharp cultural critic who brings both personal honesty and analytical rigor to a subject that gets plenty of moral judgment but far less serious examination — this book tries to fill that gap.
Jamilah Lemieux presents Black. Single. Mother.: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging, a book that refuses to be either apologist or polemic. Lemieux, a veteran writer and editor who has covered Black culture and politics for publications including Ebony and ESSENCE, turns her critical eye on her own experience as a Black single mother while drawing on a wider cultural and historical frame.
The book is part memoir, part cultural criticism — tracing how Black single mothers are represented, judged, and misunderstood in American public life, while also telling the intimate story of what that life actually contains. Lemieux is interested in the longing that gets flattened by stereotype and the belonging that gets built anyway.
The event is free and open to the public at Politics and Prose at Union Market, 1324 4th Street NE, Washington DC.