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Last week the Center for Poets and Writers at OSU Tulsa held a powerful reading and discussion of RJ Young‘s newly released memoir, Let It Bang: A Young Black Man’s Reluctant Odyssey into Guns.

Young’s story details his journey into becoming an NRA certified pistol instructor as a black man in America.

Using humor and perspectives gained from his life experiences RJ Young invites us to explore the idea of our second amendment right and how exercising that right holds differing implications; as well as risks; depending on your race in America.

Young earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Tulsa, a master’s degree at the University of Oklahoma and is currently a Ph.D student at Oklahoma State University.

RJ Young’s memoir, Let It Bang, can be purchased at Magic City Books and on Amazon.

Literary Editor

Casey McLerran is the Literary Editor at the Black Wall Street Times. She is a Sooner State transplant from Forest Hills, NY. McLerran arrived in Oklahoma at the age of three shortly after gentrification displaced her and her family out of their home in New York. At first glance, many think they have McLerran figured out. To be frank, she’s a biracial American young woman that unapologetically embraces her half-African identity — a feminist-womanist she is. Her pen operates as her voice as well as her sword. Her accolades include the 2018 Rural Oklahoma Poetry Museum’s Oklahoma Poem Award, a business management degree, and her three beautiful children. Her objective with the Black Wall Street Times is to elevate and amplify the literary art of modern black American culture, pay tribute to African-American literary trailblazers, all while simultaneously linking and introducing children to the world of colorful American writers.