reading as resistance

Written By Shayla Zimmerman

Our choice now is war or death. Our option is survival. Listen to your own Black hearts.

Nikki Giovanni

In this episode of Radicals for Good, we're talking about how reading is a radical practice and ways to build community with books and food with Franchesca Lamarre, a Haitian chef and cultural organizer from The Peoples Book Club and Ayiti Spaghetti.

Reading as Resistance with Franchesca Lamarre
Radicals for Good

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Who’s in this episode?

franchesca lamarre

Cultural Organizer & Haitian Chef

Franchesca Lamarre is a first-generation Haitian chef, artist, filmmaker, photographer, writer, DJ, and cultural organizer from Detroit's historic Conant Gardens neighborhood. Descended from the self-determined legacies of Detroit's Black Bottom and revolutionary Ayiti her work is rooted in the belief that creativity, community, and imagination are essential tools for liberation.

For over a decade, Lamarre has explored the intersections of Black futurism, food sovereignty, technology, storytelling, and social justice. She has traveled throughout the United States teaching Black Futurist frameworks and creating experiences that invite people to imagine more equitable and abundant futures. Her curatorial projects have been featured in Fader, The New York Times, and Al Jazeera, and she is the co-founder of the internationally celebrated #AfroFutureFEST.

As a filmmaker, she directed Virago, an experimental documentary examining the lives and creative practices of five Black Detroit femme musicians. As a writer, her work appears in Até Mais: Until More, an anthology centered on radical poetics and liberated futures.

In 2024, Lamarre launched Ayiti Spaghetti, a Haitian food pop-up that quickly became one of Detroit's most talked-about dining experiences, earning recognition on the Detroit Free Press's Top 10 Best New Restaurants and Dining Experiences list in 2025. Through food, she tells stories of migration, memory, and belonging, drawing connections across the Black, Caribbean, & Latinx diaspora while honoring her Haitian roots.

Whether hosting The People's Book Club, DJing in Detroit, documenting Black life through photography, or gathering strangers around a shared meal, Franchesca Lamarre creates spaces where culture, joy, and collective possibility can flourish.

Shayla Zimmerman

Founder, Host, & Producer of Radicals for Good

Shayla is a Detroit-based community organizer, storyteller, and activist whose work centers community power, collective care, and everyday acts of resistance. She currently leads for good co., a consulting firm for values-aligned organizations. She started community organizing at 15 years old, since then she’s led local and national climate resilience and water justice initiatives and built grassroots emergency response efforts on Detroit’s East Side. Previously, she was producer and co-host of Michigan-focused conversations on United Way’s Virtual Town Halls.

Our Top 10 Radical Reads

  1. Assata by Assata Shakur

  2. freedom is a constant struggle by Angela Davis

  3. the salt eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

  4. the common wind by professor Julius s. Scott

  5. black feeling black talk black judgement (poetry) by Nikki Giovanni

  6. parable series by Octavia E. Butler

  7. abbott (graphic novel series) by Saladin Ahmed

  8. the next american revolution by Grace Lee Boggs

  9. becoming good ancestors by David Ehrenfeld

  10. rage becomes her by Soraya Chemaly

Further Learning

Additional Sources

Shayla Zimmerman
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