We recently connected with Sasha Beckette-Abdullah and have shared our conversation below.

Sasha , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

The mission of ABC Read is to develop and nurture a culture of literacy in Black and underserved communities. The reason behind this mission simply put, in the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, “I was sick and tired of being sick and tired” of seeing our Black community suffer from high levels of illiteracy in our city of Cleveland. There’s been tons of research and studies that have been done on the negative effects of not knowing how to read or lacking proficiency in reading however, the solutions that would be offered often times would not be consistently implemented or some of the solutions wouldn’t be specific enough to address the needs of the Black community.

In addition to the non-profit I founded, I also started a brand called Reading Is Freedom. This was birthed after reading the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass being an enslaved man who credits his escape from slavery with him freeing his mind by learning how to read. I realized that it was imperative to equate literacy to liberation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Sasha(Say-sha) Beckette-Abdullah and I am a proud mom of 7! My oldest is 26 and my youngest is 11. Yup I’ve always been a busy lady. A few things that I love are singing old school songs, having conversations with my children, reading and learning about Black history, laughing and eating caramalized chocolate ice cream!

So now about how I entered into the literacy space seeing as though I didn’t grow up reading. I actually didn’t start getting into reading until I was in college and after I converted to Islam over 30 years ago.

I really started honing in on reading when I was homeschooling my older children and my then sister-in-law asked me to tutor her daughters. That was the beginning of my reading tutoring business ABC Learn Tutoring which I’m still operating 16 years later.

Then, in 2014 after having my son in an expensive lightweight boring summer reading program that was not culturally relevant to the majority Black children there, that lead me into starting the nonprofit ABC Read, INC. With our mission being to develop and nurture a culture of literacy in Black and underserved communities we are proud to say we’ve been doing just that for almost 10 years! We’ve distributed close to 6,000 new or gently used books that majority represents Black people, authors and illustrators. We have some of the most dynamic and engaging reading events that the whole family can enjoy! We also provide healthy food options for the people as well.

Lastly, I started a podcast called Real Reading Talk and I created the brand Reading Is Freedom. Reading Is Freedom was birthed after reading the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass because he credited his escape from slavery with learning how to read. So, it sparked in me to change the discourse around reading from you need to read in order to pass a test, to reading gives you the freedom to choose your own path in life.

One of the things I’m proud of is the testimonials that I get from parents about how much their children have improved in their reading and how confident they’ve become in their reading skills. They also love that I incorporate teaching them financial literacy terms and about young Black entrepreneurs.

When I look at how I grew up in two households where reading was not the norm but watching t.v was and now I’m a big promoter of literacy especially in the Black community, it’s a reminder of how you may not always have the best start however, your goal must be to have a great finish.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

One of the ways I built my audience on social media was having Facebook live read alouds. I did these for almost 2 years consistently and this was before Covid. My advice would be to consistently post beneficial content. Even in the business of selling people don’t want to be sold to they want to know you can help them solve a problem they have.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What has helped me become an authority in the literacy space is my consistency of talking about the importance of literacy in the Black community. Again I’m a reading tutor for prek-4th graders, certified dyslexia tutor, founder/executive director of ABC Read, podcaster that talks about literacy and I started a brand called Reading Is Freedom. It’s safe to say folks are clear that I’m in the literacy lane fa real!   

Contact Info:

• Website: https://abcread.org/ https://abclearntutoring.com https://readingisfreedom.store/.com/
• Instagram: Abc.read, Readingisfreedom_
• Facebook: @ abc read @abc learn @reading is freedom
• Linkedin: Sasha Beckette-Abdullah
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@readingisfreedom9756