BPL To Host 'Read-In For Justice: Let The Children Speak' On Aug. 8

From the Birmingham Public Library:

July 31, 2020

By Gelenda Norman, Library Assistant III at the Central Library Youth Department

The Birmingham Public Library is
putting the spotlight on the next generation as it prepares to host its third
Read-In for Justice virtual event at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8.

“Read-In for Justice: Let the Children Speak,”
is the theme for the third edition of BPL’s popular monthly series in which
people from the community read books on the subject of race and social
injustice.

The event will pay tribute to 1963, when the
call to desegregate Birmingham went out. Civil rights leaders gathered from
time to time strategizing and making plans to protest the discrimination
against blacks in business and in everyday life. The plans included non-violent
protests. In 1963, the plan was to enlist children to march throughout the city
in protest of segregation. Thus, the Children’s March came to be.

Jahman Hill & Eric Marable, Jr., founders of
The Flourish Alabama and past participants of BPL’s Bards & Brews, held a
Virtual Poetry Camp last week. The theme of their camp was the Children's
March. The outcome was so powerful that BPL decided to “Let the Children Speak”
be the focus of the August Read-In for Justice. Click here to read more about
the Flourish Summer Poetry Camp

“Read In for Justice: Let the Children Speak”
will feature:

· ·
Monica Clark-Robinson, author of Let the
Children March, answering questions and
sharing background on the book.

A · A discussion with Janice Wesley Kelsey, author of I Woke Up with My Mind on Freedom. - Wesley will share her perspective as one of the children who participated in in the 1963 Children’s March in Birmingham.

Ja · Janice Welsey Kesley will join a Flourish Poetry Camp participant (Katelyn Miller), Aaliyah Taylor of Homewood Public Library and an elementary student (TBA) from the Birmingham City Schools to read “Let the Children Speak.

T · Three participants from the Flourish Virtual Poetry Camp – Katelyn Miller, Saidah Royal and Antonio Johnson - will read one of their poetry writings.

For more information, go to www.cobpl.org.

This press release was produced by the Birmingham Public Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.