One Read for Racial Justice: The Message: Home

The One Read for Racial Justice is an annual, community reading program whose goals are to center BIPOC stories, create opportunities for dialogues across difference and discipline, inspire action around justice issues, and to promote community. It’s like a giant book club where we all get together to read a common text and then discuss it as a community and plan other events that help deepen our appreciation of the book and its themes. The One Read is an initiative led by the library in collaboration with a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni across departments and disciplines.

"Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. He is the recipient of a National Magazine Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is currently the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department at Howard University." - Book jacket, The Message

Written as a letter to his students, Coates ruminates on the global intersection of justice issues through his trip to Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine. Providing no easy answers, he explores how stories are connected to both oppression and liberation - how they shape our humanity, how they can distort reality, how they are connected to power, and how they hold the potential for us to imagine a more just world.