Catching up with debut author Christina Hammonds Reed
Christina Hammonds Reed wrote the New York Times Best Selling book The Black Girls, released earlier this year in August 2020. This is a coming of age novel about Black teenager Ashley who is living a charmed life during her senior year in Los Angeles. One day everything changes in April 1992, the day when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. As the Riots take over the city, we see Ashley questioning everything in her life - her role as a sister, daughter, friend and Black kid.
As a non-Black reader, the book helped me empathize with the characters and have a glimpse of the Black experience in America. There is so much to learn and my teens and I have had many powerful conversations about race, what equality looks like for all and what we can do to work toward a better future. This is a must read for all high schoolers in America. I would even say, every teen & adult should read this powerful, beautifully written novel.
Christina grew up in Los Angeles and holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Her work previously appeared in the Santa Monica Review and One Teen Story. The Black Kids is her fist novel.
Thank you again to Christina for taking the time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions for @mommylovesbooks.
How old were you during the LA riots and how much do you remember? What kind of research did you do to piece together it all to create such a powerful & genuine story?
I was eight during the riots and, like Ashley, I was fairly removed from them. My main memories are of watching them on tv and trying to understand why people who looked like me were so hurt and angry, and why their anger had taken this particular form. I remember it feeling both very near and very far away. My dad worked Downtown around then and would occasionally take me to his office on the weekends, and seeing those same streets filled with angry protestors was surreal.
For research, I really relied on this compendium by the LA Times called Understanding the Riots, which included articles and a breakdown of everything in the year leading up to the Rodney King verdict, as well as its aftermath. Also invaluable was this one-woman-play by Anna Deavere Smith Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which takes the perspectives of people across cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and their responses to the riots. I read a bunch of articles online and watched tons of YouTube for random recordings, both professional and amateur, of the riots, and to listen to the music of the era, see the clothes, and watch the music videos that Ashley and her friends would’ve been into. That part was tons of fun, since it was revisiting a lot of the music that I already love and getting nostalgic for songs I hadn’t heard in forever.
Reading this book in some ways, it sadly feels like not much has changed with racism since the 90s but I am also hopeful with the progress and having active teenagers of my own, I want to believe that a new generation is and will demand change? How do you view the progress?
I think that progress in this country has always been two steps forward, one step back. I’m a huge history buff and whenever we see movements for change, we see the backlash. After Reconstruction, we get the rise of the KKK and one of the worst lynching eras in our history. After the Civil Rights and Black Power era, we get the crack era and the dog-whistle politics of the Reagan era and rise of the “the welfare queen” myth. After the hope of the Obama era, we get Charlottesville and the rise of various alt-right factions who feel as though they need to “reclaim” their place in the American power structure.
I think what we are seeing in 2020, which makes me feel more hopeful than not, is that there has been a multi-racial, multi-national, multi-generational coalition of people fighting for not just symbolic feel-good changes, but a systemic shift. Young people have always been at the front of the fight for progress. During the ‘60s you see schoolchildren braving water hoses and angry adult mobs as they attempt to integrate spaces. I admire Gen Z and how this generation has responded to everything from gun-control after Parkland, to climate change, to Black Lives Matter and the recent George Floyd protests. I think they’re building in really powerful ways on the conversations previous generations have started.
It has been said that this should be required reading for all teenagers in America. I would go as far as adults AND teenagers. When you wrote this book, was this your intention?
For me, it always comes down to character. I never set out to be didactic in my writing and didn’t exactly set out to write a social justice book. It’s one of the main reasons why Ashley isn’t at the heart of the riots through most of the book and is herself a really flawed character. I just wanted to examine what it’s like to be a privileged Black girl moving through the world in non-Black spaces at a time when race and systemic inequality is at the front of everyone’s mind. It was a way to explore some of the issues I grappled with growing up, but also to look at how our history does and doesn’t reflect our present.
That said, I think good writing either builds empathy or allows the reader to feel seen, and if I’m helping black kids who grew up like myself feel like their experiences are being reflected on the page, or if I’m helping non-Black readers empathize with Ashley and understand something about the Black experience in America that they’d hadn’t previously considered, then I consider it a job well done!
What are you working on now?
I’m writing what will hopefully be an adult book about Blackness and the pursuit of The American Dream, through the lens of a family aspiring to be like The Jackson Five. Also, mostly, it’s really just about family, how we build each other up, how we misunderstand each other and fail to communicate, and how those dynamics change with both success and failure over decades.
When you are not writing, what do you like to do?
I am an avid beach bum. I love being in and near the water, and even better if I’m accompanied by a good book and close friends. At any given time, there is usually sand tracked through my place.
What authors inspired you as a kid? What authors inspire you now?
As a kid I really loved Louisa May Alcott and Little Women for its portrayal of sisterhood, family, and the absolute fierceness of Jo March, who I definitely wanted to be (although I thought her marriage to the Professor was super lame). I also loved the work of Mildred Taylor who wrote Let The Circle Be Unbroken, The Road to Memphis, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry for writing about a loving black family trying to get by even in the face of the trauma of the Jim Crow Era. And I loved Matilda, because as a shy, awkward and somewhat bullied kid, I so deeply empathized with Matilda as an outsider looking for love and acceptance and coming into control of her own power.
Now, I find myself inspired by many of my contemporaries in YA and the beauty and inclusivity of what they’ve accomplished with their works. I’m excited for anything by Brit Bennett and Yaa Gyasi. I loved There, There by Tommy Orange and am excited to see what he does next. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen blew me away and just made me want to both give up writing and strive to be better. And Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Colum McCann are always absolutely transcendent and can take all my money.
What are you currently reading?
I’m pages away from finishing All Adults Here by Emma Straub, and next on the list is Caste by Isabel Wilkerson!
We look forward to reading more from Christina Hammonds Reed. Thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to thoughtfully answer these questions. Also, thank you for the book suggestions. I have a few more books to add to my “to be read’ list. Happy Reading everyone. :)
