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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Howard College professor Nikole Hannah-Jones remains to be out right here doing the ancestors’ work by selling revolutionary Black writers and pro-Black literature whereas the raging white nationalists operating America work their hardest to limit, whitewash and outright ban all Black historical past and social research that make white individuals, in all of their infinite white fragility, really feel oppressed.
On Saturday, March 15, The “1619 Mission” creator will host a free “read-in” highlighting Black books, authors, and themes in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, the place the district with the most important proportion of Black youngsters resides. The rationale Hannah-Jones is internet hosting it — and never a consultant from the Waterloo Neighborhood College District, the place the occasion had been held for Ok-12 college students for almost 20 years — is that this 12 months’s occasion, which was scheduled to be hosted by the College of Northern Iowa School of Schooling in February for Black Historical past Month, was canceled for concern of dropping federal funding by operating afoul of the Trump administration’s directives to remove all issues range, fairness and inclusion. So, what would have been the district’s nineteenth annual African American Learn-In turned out to be white supremacy’s four-hundredth annual effort to stifle Black schooling and progress.
And that, my buddies, is why we want leaders like Nikole Hannah-Jones.
From the Sacramento Observer:
On Monday, in a video posted on social media, she introduced she’s going to current what she’s calling “An African American Learn-In” in Waterloo this Saturday, a free occasion that includes Black authors she’s invited to hitch her. Together with readings and conversations, Hannah-Jones will hand out “a whole bunch” of free books, together with copies of “The 1619 Mission” for adults and an tailored picture-book model for youngsters.
“Why am I holding this occasion?” Hannah-Jones says in a video posted on her Instagram account. “Waterloo is my house city, and Waterloo has probably the most closely Black faculty district within the state of Iowa, and it’s the most closely Black metropolis within the state of Iowa.”
The varsity district that educated her opted out of this 12 months’s statewide read-in, “and so they backed out due to the brand new directives popping out of the Trump administration,” Hannah-Jones says. “And that’s actually the rationale these directives exist … They’re actually to intimidate faculty districts from educating Black historical past and Black books. And so my district determined to not take part for concern of penalties.”
“That’s once we on the 1619 Freedom College determined to step up,” she says, referring to an after-school academy Hannah-Jones based in her hometown. “We determined we might not deprive our youngsters — all of our youngsters, of all races — of the flexibility to learn inspiring and affirming books concerning the Black expertise.”
The occasion will function a few of “my good author buddies,” together with Jacqueline Woodson, Derek Barnes and Tammy Charles, Hannah-Jones says. “So this Saturday we may have an enormous, colossal, stunning group African American read-in.”
The March 15 occasion will happen between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at Waterloo West Excessive College.
SEE ALSO:
Historical past Of The ‘Freedom’s Journal’ The first African American Newspaper
