Culture + Kicks: The Intersection of Sneaker Culture and Social Justice

In collaboration with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Community Read of The Hate You Give, we will be having a conversation - Culture and “Kicks”: Exploring the ways sneaker culture and social justice intersect in The Hate You Give.

To fathom sneaker culture's marketability and the taste-making impact of African-Americans, we must recognize sneaker culture's commodification through literature, television, and film. Specifically, The Hate U Give (2017 & 2018) garners special attention due to its poetics and African-American specific narrative. This talk explores how author, Angie Thomas uses Hip-Hop culture in her text and film to address police brutality, and how African-Americans use sneaker culture as a means of expression and communication.

About Community Read

Each year, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library hosts a big, exciting, community-wide book club known as Community Read. This year's Community Read program will take place throughout March 2019.

The Library chooses titles for adults, teens, preteens and children, and invites everyone in the community to engage in Community Read by reading the book, talking about it, attending library programs, engaging with the Library on social media and celebrating a love of reading.

About The Presenter

Jemayne Lavar King, a native of Franklin, Virginia is a 2017 TEDx speaker finalist, and a member of Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society and Delta Epsilon Iota Academic Honor Society. King's first poem, Richard Morgan Flier, was published in 2002, followed by the books Sole Food: Digestible Sneaker Culture, Life Within the Dorm and Other College-Related Poems, Managing Relationships: Bridging the Communication Divide, and 20 First Dates: The Poetic Mixtape. King is the creator of the world’s first collegiate English course dedicated to identification within sneaker culture.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English/News Media from Elizabeth City State University, and a Master of Arts in English/Literature from Virginia State University. He is currently a candidate for a PhD in Literary Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In 2014, King became an ambassador for the American Heart Association, when he won the organization's Lifestyle Change Award. Serving via lifetime membership of the Elizabeth City State University and Virginia State University Alumni Association, King is also a member of the United States Press Association and the National Association of Black Journalists. He is the producer/co-host of The Gentleman and The Jerk podcast via the A Plus Entertainment Group. King resides in Charlotte, North Carolina where he operates Sole Food Brand, LLC, and lectures as an English professor at Johnson C. Smith University.