Stay connected with other York alumni through our new virtual book club.
In this online community, alumni can enjoy books related to lifelong learning, social issues, literature, psychology, and other user-submitted ideas. There is no cost to participate – you just have to get a copy of the book to enjoy.
How it works: Book club members will connect through a private online forum where they can discuss the current book and network with each other. The group will spend two months on each book, so you'll have plenty of time to read. You can sign up and learn more at: www.pbc.guru/yorku
Why should you join? As a member, you will have an opportunity to both connect with fellow alumni and be part of a lifelong learning community!
Currently reading
A Pair of Wings - Carole Hopson (October - December)
A few years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton fields with her family when an airplane flew over their heads. It buzzed so low she thought she could catch it in her hands. Bessie was fearless. She knew there was freedom in those wings.
The daughter of a woman born into slavery, Bessie answers the call of the Great Migration. She moves to Chicago, where she wins the backing of two wealthy, powerful Black men—Robert Abbott, creator and publisher of the Chicago Defender, and Jesse Binga, the founder of Chicago’s first Black bank. Abbott becomes her mentor, while Binga becomes her lover. Her true first love, though, remains flying.
But in 1920, no one in the United States will train a Black woman to fly. So, twenty-eight-year-old Bessie learns to speak French and sets off for Europe. Two years ahead of Amelia Earhart, Bessie earns her pilot's license, and later she learns death-defying stunts from French and German dogfighting combat pilots.
While she finds no prejudice in the air, Bessie wrestles with other challenges on the ground. A plane crash nearly kills her, her brothers seem to be crumbling under the weight of Jim Crow, and, while grappling with tough truths about Binga, Bessie begins to wonder if the freedom she finds in the sky means she must otherwise fly solo.
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