There aren’t enough books by or about Black lesbians to take them for granted. While reading Unapologetic, Charlene Carruthers’ Black feminist manifesto, I stumbled across a valuable recommendation: “I saw myself in April Sinclair’s Coffee Will Make You Black, and the coming-of-age story of a Black lesbian was closer to home than I was willing to accept as a teenager.”
Immediately, I was intrigued. A quick search on eBay brought results. For the princely sum of £2.95, a second-hand copy of Coffee Will Make You Black became mine. I checked the post every day until it arrived. Though I’ve read plenty of lesbian coming-of-age books, like Annie on My Mind and The Miseducation of Cameron Post, so far none of them had featured Black protagonists. This one felt special. And I was right. This dog-eared paperback contains wonders.
Coffee Will Make You Black is the story of Jean “Stevie” Stevenson, a girl growing up in the Southside of Chicago. Playground politics are punctuated by moments of historical significance — in passing, Stevie recalls the tears that rolled down her mother’s cheeks as Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic I Have a Dream speech. The civil rights movement is the backdrop to Stevie’s childhood, although she is initially too young to grasp its significance.
Though naïve, Stevie is a perceptive narrator. As she struggles to make sense of her changing body and all the unspoken rules girls are expected to follow, Stevie offers valuable insights into what it means to be a Black girl in a racist, sexist society. She first absorbs and then challenges the idea a girl’s worth is determined by the lightness of her skin, having conversations that reveal just how deeply colorism is embedded in people’s minds. This whip-smart commentary is reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye, minus the causality.
Through Stevie, April Sinclair captures the powerlessness that defines childhood — the seemingly arbitrary wrath of teachers and parents, which can strike when least expected. Like many a misfit child, Stevie makes some questionable decisions in the hope of being popular. These misadventures are highly entertaining; especially when Stevie — an honor roll student — is selected to read out the erotic diary entries of a classmate’s older sister.
At home, her questions about bodies and relationships are rebuffed. Stevie’s main source of information is her classmates, who know little more than she does. Long before Stevie’s own sexuality manifests, she is sexualized by the men and boys around her. Groping and catcalling are part of the walk home from school, where there is a constant, low-level pressure for Stevie to show interest in boys.
However, as she matures, Stevie begins to realize that she doesn’t want the same things as her peers. The idea of kissing boys disgusts her as a child, and holds no appeal to Stevie as a teenager with a boyfriend. The school nurse is the object of Stevie’s desires — not any of the boys her friends think she should like. Despite the weight of heterosexual expectations, Stevie thinks that she just might be a lesbian.
When we first meet Stevie, she’s an impressionable young girl who succumbs to peer pressure more than once. By the novel’s conclusion, Stevie has matured and developed a solid sense of self that keeps her grounded. In the sequel – Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice — we revisit Stevie when she’s older and, in theory, wiser.
Now a college graduate, Stevie has moved to San Franciso — where there’s a thriving gay community. Vegetarian diets, yoga, and disco dancing are all the rage. This is a more permissive world than the churchgoing community where Stevie grew up, and she makes the most of it.
Once more, Stevie proves to be shrewd. Her thoughts on interracial dating, and the risk of racism that comes with loving white women, are as relevant now as they were at the time of publication.
Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice is a book with a powerful message. Stevie learns to accept herself, regardless of what the people around her think. Whether it’s the homophobia of her mother or the racism of white lovers, Stevie no longer understands herself through the prejudices of others. Through her careful character development, April Sinclair offers an invaluable life lesson.
There are a lot of similarities between Stevie’s life and Sinclair’s own. Like her heroine, Sinclair grew up in Chicago. In her native city, she witnessed the Black Power Movement and Civil Rights struggles — experiences which she drew upon in creating the Stevie novels. And, like Stevie, April Sinclair is a woman who makes extraordinary things happen.
Just after she started writing the Stevie books, Sinclair called a bookstore and offered to do a reading. They accepted. She took charge of promotion and handed out fliers. Over 125 people came to listen — an astonishing feat, given that Sinclair had only 20 pages of her first draft to read from. At this point, she didn’t have a publisher, agent, or even a complete draft of Coffee Will Make You Black.
The success of this first reading and the way Stevie’s story resonated with so many people led to April Sinclair securing a commercial publishing deal. And now Coffee Will Make You Black is about to see a revival. Gabrielle Union and Octavia Spencer have both signed on to adapt Stevie’s story for the big screen.
