With the notable exception of Shondaland, even the most acclaimed, topical and popular romance novels by black writers tend to be overlooked and under-sung as cultural touchstones, even within media circles that celebrate black authors. Neither the excellent Zora Canon , for example, nor Essence's recent list of 24 Books by black authors to read this winter made much room for romance. This means that talented writers like Beverly Jenkins, Piper Huguley and Alyssa Cole are doubly marginalized — sidelined in mainstream publishing because a predominantly white industry discounts their appeal, and overlooked in the world of black art because of bias against their chosen genre of romance causes people to discount their work.

There’s much more to black history than pain and hard times, and romance authors more than anyone else know it.

Meanwhile, wonderful things are happening in the black romance world. As challenging as the publishing world is for black writers, there are fewer steps between the audience and creators in print than on screen, and therefore more opportunity for the views, joys, and concerns of black people about their world to find expression in a relatively unfiltered form. Technological changes like the rise of ebooks and independent publishing platforms made distribution outside of the big five publishing houses more viable, and the unrelenting advocacy of black women writers and readers using blogs, podcasts and social media accounts like Women of Color in Romance and Girl Have You Read play a role as well. As a result, despite the persistence of systemic barriers to publication and our collective neglect, the African American romance genre is alive, well, and like Biggie once said, it has so many great stories to share.

Where to start

One thing is clear: We should be reading more romance by black authors, across the board, all year long. But I’d specifically like to see folks exploring historicals right now. The stereotype of historical romance as being all about dukes in Regency England has thankfully been shaken up lately by a diverse group of authors who are telling stories far outside of those confines — and black authors are a key part of that. Yet even many of the folks who do read black romance often don’t read black historicals. Some avoid it, thinking that because of racism, the stories will be all about tragedy, drudgery and oppression. But that's a mistake.

There’s much more to black history than pain and hard times, and romance authors, more than anyone else, know it. A writer friend told me that’s what he thinks some people outside of the culture don’t get about blackness: the sheer joy of it, especially given so many are only fixated on the struggle. Black romance thrives on complexity and nuance, on black solidarity and achievement, on the triumph of everyday life lived well, in spite of the odds. After all, something special happens when you marry African American history and the romance genre.

There’s a special alchemy to it, a black hist-rom magic

African American history gives historical romance relevance and stakes. And the romance genre gives African American historical fiction hope. They reinvigorate each other — like a good couple, each partner makes the other better.

Even if you’re not a die-hard fan of the genre, you’re probably familiar with the popular saying among romance lovers: “HEA or GTFO." It’s everywhere, in all corners of Romancelandia, on everything from t-shirts to mugs to social media bios. Translation: Happy ever after or get the f—k out. There's more to it than personal preference — it’s a criterion, a credo and a rallying cry that reinforces the boundaries around the genre should anyone ever lose sight of them. Those three words signal that the single most important defining feature of the romance genre is its commitment to happy endings — and embodied in that, hope for all. That's what distinguishes a romance from just any old love story; it’s also what makes romance the perfect accompaniment/secret ingredient in African American historical fiction. It takes the painful realities and harsh uncertainties of the black experience and marries them to the most joyful, pleasureful, and optimistic literary tradition.

Done right, meaning executed in a way that’s organic to the plot and authentic to the characters, that HEA or GTFO mandate makes romance a rich source of life affirming stories written by and about black Americans. Alyssa Cole's award-winning novel, An Extraordinary Union , for example, was inspired by the life of Mary Bowser , a union spy who was a servant in Confederate President Jefferson Davis's household. Until Cole took up the cause, Bowser had primarily been a footnote in other people’s stories, when she was remembered at all. Yet the narrative turned out to be the perfect basis for an instant classic about a spy who goes mostly unobserved, passing critical information from conversations overheard amongst Confederate leaders to the Union and falls in love with her handler.

The black activist tradition in romance

In telling that story, Cole is following a well-established tradition. African American romantic fiction has always been politically relevant and socially meaningful in both overt and subtle ways. Implicitly, the mere depiction of black love makes an affirmative statement about black lives and humanity when those things are challenged every day in mainstream discourse and the law . Black historical romance also has explicitly activist lineage and themes, as scholar Dr. Rita Dandridge has meticulously documented.

The abolitionist and suffragist Frances E. W. Harper wrote what was arguably the first African American romance novel, Iola Leroy in 1892. Since then, striving for racial justice has been and remains one of the central drivers of African American historical romance. As Dandridge noted, the first wave of Black romance writers in the late nineteenth to early 20th century “found the historical romance a useful and timely genre in which to encase unresolved sociopolitical issues regarding African American rights and status in nineteenth-century American society." That legacy lives on; it’s expressed today in plots and happy endings that promise collective, not just individual, progress, and love of community not just love of an individual romantic partner.

With this rich black activist heritage, there’s no doubt you’ll learn something from reading black historical romance — I do every single time I pick one up — but as legions of fans will tell you, the beauty of reading romance that’s done right is that no matter how weighty the subject, the experience feels like a reward, not work. In fact, reading romance is a part of self-care for many readers, especially in a difficult, often crazy-making political environment that appears to be moving away from, rather than toward, justice.

For a lot of readers, black romance is nourishment, soul food for the heart and mind and a symbolic corrective to the violence of dominant culture. African American book blogger Funmi Baker described what she felt when she started reading black romance in this way: "As I learn the history of my people, I find that I’m also learning about myself. When I look at black people, we aren’t just made of struggle and suffering. We are the product of love. We are the product of fighting. We are the product of WINNING." When I read that I just had to nod yes.

Dr. Carole Bell is a Jamaican immigrant, a lover of politics and popular culture, a Harvard graduate and loyal Tar Heel by way of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She teaches, researches and writes about media, politics, and public opinion, and is most interested in how social identity shapes how we experience the world. Her upcoming book analyzes the representation, reception and political significance of black-white romantic narratives in American film. Follow her on Twitter @ BellCV .

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