- As Austin turns the page on one chapter, we're especially lucky to have traditions like the Austin African American Book Festival still going strong.

The festival is celebrating 20 years of championing black literature and community.

And this year's festival features some major names.

The anniversary kicked off with Public Enemy co-founder Chuck D, and you can still catch Pulitzer Prize winner, Nikole Hannah-Jones and Austin poet Laureate, Zell Miller III.

For a closer look, we have Dr.

Rosalind Oliphant, the founder of the Austin African American Book Festival.

Dr.

Oliphant, congratulations on 20 years and thanks so much for being with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- So Dr.

Oliphant, take us back to the beginning.

Why was it important for you to start this festival?

You've said that Austin truly needed it.

- Yes, so I had a bookstore in Austin in 1992, and we were able to ride the wave until 2000, and then it became prudent to look at another model.

It just was too difficult to maintain the bookstore Bookstores are very hard to maintain.

- Oh yes, especially in today's society.

- Yes, yes.

And I'd be out and about in the community and people would say, okay, what's next?

What's next?

We missed the book clubs, the author signings, the children's story time, so what's next?

And I gave it a lot of thought, prayed about it and looked to the Harlem book fair that was happening in New York and decided that would be something great to bring here.

Something similar, not to mimic it, but to create something special for Austin and that's how the seed was planted.

- I love that.

And sometimes those are the best ideas.

It's like, I'm occupying this space.

You see other people around you doing it.

It's like, I can join in that too.

- Yes.

- Now for this festival, I wanna talk about your bookstore, which is very significant for many reasons in a second.

But first, what are the highlights we can look forward to most this time?

You've got amazing authors, fun for kids, a market and it's all free.

- Yes, it's all free.

We do a lot of work on the back end writing grants to fund the festival, private donations, all to make it accessible to everyone.

Price is not a deterrent as to why you could come to the festival.

So we do our work and for 20 years, we've been able to offer the festival for free.

And some of the things that we can look forward to, we have really grown the Kid Zone.

The Austin African American Book Festival Kid Zone has grown to a full day.

In the past, we've had events in the Kid Zone, but this year and the last couple of years we've had a featured author as well as activities all day, interactive activities, nonstop kids, snack bar, lunch for kids.

There's no reason why families can't come and spend the whole day and enjoy the Austin African American Book Festival Kid Zone.

Not only that, we really focus on indie authors.

We've been doing that for quite some time.

We have an indie author showcase.

We have an opportunity for independent authors to have table spaces.

We give these authors an opportunity to connect with established authors, national authors, other authors.

So it's a great networking opportunity.

We are real proud of our independent author showcase.

- That is so cool.

And it's hard to break it into the business as an author these days.

And you got something for everyone.

And like you said, no excuse, it's all free.

And I want to go back to your bookstore.

You founded Folk Tales book company back in 1992, which you're humble about it, but it was Austin's first black owned bookstore.

So clearly inspiring a love of literature and reading is your life's work.

But we're seeing some educators say there's a reading crisis in schools from elementary all the way to college and all of our attention spans are limited.

I'm guilty as charged.

Why is it so important though, that we don't lose our love and appreciation for the written world?

- Listen, one of the things that you may or may not know is that I'm a retired educator.

I spent time working as a high school teacher, an elementary administrator, and also doing some special projects in the education space.

And one of the things that we have seen in education over a long period of time is this unhealthy focus on testing and some of the authentic reading has been pushed to the side.

So it is very important that communities and parents and even educators spend more time having kids in the library and having authentic reading that is not connected to a test or to some other assessment, but just reading for the joy of reading and really promoting lifelong reading and learning.

So that is very important and that is one thing that we are very proud of with the festival.

When I started the bookstore in 1992, I am seeing young kids who attended our story times, our summer reading camps, who are coming to the festival with their kids.

I'm feeling like, I'm like, wait a minute, what is happening?

I mean, it is truly an honor that we are seeing the kids of kids that attended our events back in the nineties but it's also making me feel like, okay, how old am I really in this process?

But it's all good though because we are working to influence literature for generations in this community.

- And you make such a great point.

You know, when you make reading a chore, something that's often inaccessible in schools, kids villainize reading, they're not interested.

You gotta sometimes meet kids where they're at and that's your entry point.

And lastly, okay, I'm very curious.

What's on your summer reading list?

- Well, one of the books that I'm really looking forward to reading is "Kin" by Tayari Jones.

I'm really looking forward to reading that book.

I read her book "An American Marriage", which was just tremendous.

And then after reading that book, I read all of her books.

And this is her new installation that I've not had a chance to read.

But I have been reading the books that we are offering at the festival.

Some of the authors that we are featuring at the festival, I've read their works, but I've been reading their newest works, which are all really incredible.

And we hope everyone will come out and enjoy what we're offering at the festival and just have a really good time connecting with other book lovers, connecting with authors, asking questions, learning.

We're looking forward to a wonderful 20th anniversary celebration.

- And we are looking forward to that too.

And hey, you've read the new books from the new author so you can personally vouch that they're good.

- Yes.

- Well, Dr.

Rosalind Oliphant, founder of the Austin African American Book Festival, thank you so much for this preview.

And the Austin African American Book Festival is Saturday, June 27th from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the George Washington Carver Museum & Library.

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