My City Need Something: Portraits and Prose for Black Existence

This lyrical testament to the power of Black community in Philadelphia and beyond combines finely wrought essays by activist and educator Rogers (How We Stay Free), vibrant snapshots from photographer Karim Brown, and quotes from Black visionaries past and present. The title is drawn from a song of the same name by Philly rapper PnB Rock, who was shot and killed during a robbery in 2022; Rogers notes that the song “encapsulates the tantamount grief and unresolved trauma of generation(s) of Black Philadelphia youth besieged by intracommunal violence, the pervasive effects of organized abandonment, and the overall climate of anti-Black racism.” He invites readers to embrace that grief while reaching for healing, hope, and joy. Brown, whose luminous slice-of-life images of Black Philadelphia are interspersed throughout, offers his own short essay on how “becoming relatively conscious of my Blackness and its relationship with the greater context of the world... shoved me into using the camera to articulate the contradictions... joy, and sorrow” of “the everyday existence of Black folk.” Rogers’s words and Brown’s images are arranged in conversation with excerpts from luminaries like Toni Morrison and Nina Simone and contemporary thinkers like Saidiya Hartman, Kiese Laymon, and Hanif Abdurraqib. The result is a radiant vision of a hopeful Black present and future. (Feb.)