Sidney Keys III’s story began in August 2016, when he visited EyeSeeMe, the only African American children’s bookstore in his native St. Louis, for the first time.
Awestruck, the 10-year-old settled onto the carpet with a sense of recognition, drawn instantly to Ty Allan Jackson’s Danny Dollar Millionaire Extraordinaire: The Lemonade Escapade because the boy on the cover was his mirror image.
“That was the first time I was proud of my skin and my Blackness,” he says. “I loved reading, but I didn’t relate to a lot of the books I was reading. They didn’t reflect who I was, who I was growing into.”
When Keys finished Danny Dollar 90 minutes later, he was inspired to do something extraordinary himself.
With help from his mom, Keys launched Books N Bros, a book club for boys ages 7–13 dedicated to showcasing African American literature and nurturing a love of reading in Black boys. What began locally in St. Louis with seven other children eventually grew into a subscription-based model that for nearly a decade served more than 1,000 readers around the world and inspired Keys’s first book, 2021’s Cool Bros Read.
Books N Bros: 44 Inspiring Books for Black Boys was published two years later. “Representation is everything,” says Keys, pictured at Mahogany Books in Oxon Hill, Maryland. “Seeing people like you doing the things that you want to do is more impactful than you can imagine.”
As a literature and postsecondary education double major at AU, Keys is turning the page toward a career as a teacher. “My mom inspired me to understand that I belong in every room I step foot in,” he says—and that includes the classroom, where just 2 percent of teachers in the United States are Black men.
Keys, who has volunteered with DC Reads and the DC Literacy Lab during his first two years at AU, says his ultimate ambition is to become a school superintendent. He aims to shape policy and ensure young learners have equitable resources, thereby writing a future where every Black boy can see himself in a position of power and possibility.