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2020-21 Book List:
Book #1 – October 20, 2020*** – 5:30pm
***Please note the date change!
If you have already registered, you don’t need to register again. ***
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
By Carol Anderson
ISBN# 978-1635571394
Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. In a powerful new afterword, she examines the repercussions of the 2018 midterm elections. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.
Book #2 – December 10, 2020 – 5:30pm
They Called Us Enemy
By George Takei
ISBN# 978-1603094504
They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.
Book #3 – February 11, 2021 – 5:30pm
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
By Richard Rothstein
ISBN# 978-1631494536
Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods. A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
Book #4 – April 29, 2021 – 5:30pm
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
By Robin Wall Kimmerer
ISBN# 978-1571313560
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass―offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
More about We the Readers Book Club:
We the Readers Book Club is meant to feed our minds and hearts. Conversation is around the book’s content and constitutional, legal, and/or civic connections, but does not necessarily relate to any curriculum or teaching. The book club is meant to build friendships and community between teachers and colleagues in your area. You can also participate in discussions by joining the We the Readers Book Club Discussion Group on Facebook.
- No Book Club participant is required to attend all of the meetings.
- 3 PDU hours are available for each meeting you DO attend.