About us
**WARNING: A scammer is sending emails to authors pretending to represent this group by offering author spotlights or other favors in exchange for money. Please ignore these messages. Contact the group organizer, Alysia Allen, via direct message on Meetup if you have any questions.
We are a group of black women who love to read, want to read more, and meet like-minded women. We are here to inspire women to read, share literature, fellowship, and encourage others in the joy of reading. We meet on the first Saturday of the month online. We are an eclectic group of Black women, and so are our reading selections. Find out more on our website www.mochagirlsread.com
For Authors and Publishers, please email Mocha Girl Classy at [classy@mochagirlsread.com](mailto:classy@mochagirlsread.com)
Aside from our monthly book club discussions, we get together for book expos, cultural events, book signings, movie outings, dinner celebrations, watch parties, and so much more.
Our club focuses on the book reader, but we do host author events.
We hail from various neighborhoods, professions, and virtually all walks of life.
If you are a Black woman in the NYC area and you love to read, then Mocha Girls Read Harlem is the place for you. Join us. We look forward to meeting up with you soon!!
Warmly,
Mocha Girl Sharnise
Harlem Chapter Organizer
Upcoming events
6
- Network event
(ONLINE) Book Club Meeting: "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill
·OnlineOnline13 attendees from 14 groupsGreetings Mocha Girls,
I hope this message finds everyone well.
Please join us on Zoom where we will have our discussion virtually.The link will be visible once you RSVP.
Warmly,
Mocha Girl SharniseOur August 2026 monthly book selection is "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill.
Remember, if you don't finish the book, you are still welcome, so come anyway!
R.S.V.P. Etiquette:
Please make sure to RSVP to an event or book club meeting ONLY if you are going. Do not RSVP if you are thinking about going or would like to go.
Thanks in advance and I can't wait to see you all!REMEMBER:
Support a Black-owned Bookstore called RESIST BOOKSELLERS and get 15% off when you use the code MGR22.About the Book:
Based on a true story, “The Book of Negroes” tells the story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755, and who, after a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal repression of a slave revolt, is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself helping the British by recording all the freed slaves on the British side in the Revolutionary War in The Book of Negroes (a real historical document that can be found today at the National Archives at Kew). Aminata is sent to Nova Scotia to start a new life, but finds more hostility, oppression, and tragedy. Separated from her one true love, and suffering the unimaginable loss of both her children, who are taken away from her, she eventually joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing odyssey back to Africa, and ends up in London as a living icon for Wilberforce and the other Abolitionists. “The Book of Negroes” is a page-turning narrative that manages to use Aminata’s heart-rending personal story to bring to life a harrowing chapter in our history.About the Author:
Lawrence Hill (born January 24, 1957) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He is known for his 2007 novel The Book of Negroes, inspired by the Black Loyalists given freedom and resettled in Nova Scotia by the British after the American Revolutionary War, and his 2001 memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. The Book of Negroes was adapted for a TV mini-series produced in 2015. He was selected in 2013 for the Massey Lectures; he drew from his non-fiction book Blood: The Stuff of Life, published that year. His ten books include other non-fiction and fictional works, and some have been translated into other languages and published in numerous other countries.Hill was born in Newmarket, Ontario, to an American couple who had immigrated to Toronto from Washington, D.C., in 1953. His father was black, and his mother was white. Hill served as chair of the jury for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
3 attendees from this group
Past events
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