The Problem
In light of recent events in the United States, we wanted to make it easier for people in our community to educate themselves about issues regarding race.
In light of recent events in the United States, we wanted to make it easier for people in our community to educate themselves about issues regarding race.
We put together a summer reading list targeted at students at our school, with a focus on books written by and about people of color. In addition to encouraging our readers to understand the diverse perspectives of black authors, we wanted to highlight issues such as racism, police brutality, and mass incarceration.
We successfully researched and created the reading list before the end of school. To distribute it to the students at our school, we contacted the teachers of the English department, made the list available on the school website, and sent it to the Board of Education.
We learned a lot about steps that we can take to inform ourselves. Each of us were exposed to issues that we hadn't been aware of before and we hope that the other members of our community will be able to say the same.
We would probably include more ways to get involved at the bottom of the list, in the additional resources section.
It was nice to be able to channel the emotions of anger and sadness that many of us were experiencing into something productive that hopefully will impact the people around us.
There were many, many more books that we could have included in our list. However, for the sake of keeping people's attention and not overwhelming them, we decided to keep it relatively short.