In Jim Crow Texas, Ivoe
Williams, the precocious daughter of emancipated slaves, manages to get a degree in journalism. But no newspapers will hire her because of the color of her skin. Ivoe’s frustration drives her and her family to Kansas City, where she and her lover, Ona, launch the first female-run African-American newspaper, Jam! On the Vine. She
uses this platform to examine segregation and the prison system—often risking both her own safety and that of her loved ones. LaShonda Katrice Barnett was born in Missouri and grew up in Park Forest. She is the editor of I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters On Their Craft and Off the Record: Conversations with African American & Brazilian Women Musicians. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica, the Chicago Tribune, and the New Orleans Review, among others. She received an M.A. in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary. She has taught literature and history at Columbia University, Hunter College, and Brown University.