Book Talk: Black. Single. Mother. with Jamilah Lemieux

About Book Talk: Black. Single. Mother. with Jamilah Lemieux

Columnist and culture critic Jamilah Lemieux will be discussing her book Black. Single. Mother: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging!

Join us on Wednesday, July 22 as we welcome writer, editor, and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux in celebration of her new book Black. Single. Mother: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging! (This event was previously scheduled for Wednesday, April 29). Jamilah will be joined in conversation by Ariel DeNey Rainey, the founder of HustleMommies, who have generously provided refreshments for the event.

Q&A and signing to follow!

A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews by a celebrated cultural critic

“Jamilah Lemieux is one of the most important feminist writers of the twenty-first century.”—Brittney Cooper

With her signature candid, humorous, and sometimes biting takes, Jamilah Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that hates “baby mamas.” With a particular verve and relatability—honed in her many years among Black Twitter’s most prominent voices—Lemieux centers the complex reality of Black single motherhood: uncertainty and fierceness alike.

Black. Single. Mother. combines riveting personal essays, infused with whip-smart cultural and historical analysis, with twenty-one intimate first-person testimonies from a spectrum of Black single mothers. A long-overdue offering in celebration of the American matriarch most often maligned, Black. Single. Mother. sets out to inspire a new cultural and community dialogue about this powerful figure as one profoundly deserving of love, support, and respect.

Jamilah Lemieux is a cultural critic and writer with a focus on issues of race, gender, and sexuality. A leading feminist thinker, social influencer, and millennial media darling, Lemieux has written for a host of platforms, including the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Essence, Playboy, The Cut, The Guardian, Colorlines, The Washington Post, Wired, Self, Refinery29, and Vanity Fair. She was prominently featured in Lifetime’s docuseries Surviving R. Kelly and Surviving R. Kelly 2: The Reckoning. She also appeared in A&E’s Secrets of Playboy. Lemieux penned the foreword for the anniversary editions of Michele Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman and Ann Petry’s Miss Muriel and Other Stories. Currently, she writes a weekly advice column for Slate‘s “Care and Feeding” parenting section. She resides in Los Angeles with her daughter Naima.

Ariel DeNey Rainey is the CEO and Founder of Hustle Mommies, a social service agency rooted in policy, advocacy, and social work that is transforming how mothers are empowered to lead within their families, businesses, and communities. She is also a Creative Strategist dedicated to brands, innovation, and community building, with collaborations that include Nike, Amazon, Walmart, and Hip-Hop icon MC Lyte. Guided by her lived experience and a vision for systemic change, Ariel has created groundbreaking initiatives under the Hustle Mommies brand, such as Paint The Hood Orange, a violence prevention and healing movement, and Pitch Like A Mom, a pitch competition that invests in Black mom-owned businesses. These efforts reflect her commitment to addressing community needs through innovative programs that blend policy/civic engagement and advocacy with direct impact.