Welcome
The Sojourner Truth Library is proud to present the Antiracist Campus Read. 2020 was a powerful year that continued to lay bare the tragic realities of white supremacy and systemic racism in the United States. We witnessed the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many others. We saw the pandemic sweep through communities, killing people of color in disproportionate numbers. We marched in the streets and demanded justice. Most recently, we watched as white supremacist terrorists mounted an insurrection against Congress, resulting in five deaths.
Some of us were shocked by these events. Some of us had seen these patterns play out for years and decades. All of us were horrified by the extent of the racist violence we witnessed.
Many of us were compelled to engage in the antiracist movement, and to do better.
The Library offers this program as a way to engage with antiracism by doing what we do best as a college community–teach and learn. We hope you will join us in shaping this new program and renewed movement for antiracism in higher education.
About the Program
The Sojourner Truth Library Antiracist Campus Read program was proposed in the summer of 2020, in response to the ongoing violence against black and brown bodies and the renewed international engagement with the movement for Black lives. The program will provide an annual opportunity for the campus community to come together to engage with antiracist discourse and explore structural racism in American society, as well as in higher education. The Library has made a commitment to run this program for five years.
This “book club” was proposed with the understanding that book clubs are not a solution to racism; but are a small, necessary step on the path to antiracism.
Program Goals
- Continue to honor the legacy of our namesake, Sojourner Truth.
- Facilitate learning and discussion about antiracism outside of the classroom, across disciplines and ranks.
- Educate the campus community about structural racism.
Program Outcomes
- Create a common understanding of antiracism and antiracist work across campus.
- Support other antiracist initiatives on campus by building knowledge and motivation to action across campus.