Register Online
You’re invited to a statewide watch party! Join us on Wednesday, September 22, at 7pm to watch Pulitzer Prize winner
Isabel Wilkerson as she discusses her new book,
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, in a video recorded for the National Book Festival. Then you’ll get the chance to join in a live community conversation led by former Massachusetts Representative
Byron Rushing and Salem State University Professor
Roopika Risam.
This free online event is brought to you by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and libraries across the Commonwealth, in collaboration with the Library of Congress and the National Book Festival 2021. Open to all, this “Festival Near You” event promises to be a lively and informed discussion of the diversity, equity, and inclusion issues sparked by Wilkerson's analysis.
Isabel Wilkerson is the author of
The Warmth of Other Suns, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize and the Heartland Prize for Nonfiction. Her second book,
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, made its way to the top of The New York Times bestseller list. In 1994 she received the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for her work with The New York Times, and in 2016 President Barack Obama awarded Wilkerson the National Humanities Medal for "championing the stories of an unsung history."
Byron Rushing served for 36 years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a leader in the Boston delegation, rising to the position of Majority Whip. During his tenure, Representative Rushing advocated for and sponsored bills in the areas of health care, civil, human and gay rights, justice reform, drug addiction, and gun safety, among other initiatives to promote social and economic justice in the Commonwealth. He was a founding member of the Library Caucus in the Legislature and served as a Trustee of the Boston Public Library. Prior to his time in the legislature, Rushing was active in the civil rights movement, working for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and also served as director of the Urban Change Program at the Urban League and as President of the Museum of African American History.
Roopika Risam is Chair of Secondary and Higher Education and Associate Professor of Education and English at Salem State University. Widely published, supported, and cited for her scholarship in postcolonial and African diaspora studies and humanities knowledge infrastructures, Dr. Risam is developing “The Global Du Bois,” a data visualization project on W.E.B. Du Bois. She also serves as editor or officer of numerous organizations promoting social justice, feminism, digital humanities, ethnic studies, and change in higher education. Her latest collection is
The Digital Black Atlantic. She also cohosts “Rocking the Academy,” a podcast featuring interviews which explore the future shape of higher education. In 2018, the Massachusetts Library Association awarded its inaugural Civil Liberties Champion Award to Dr. Risam for her progress in promoting equity and justice in the digital cultural record.
You may participate fully in the live community conversation without having read Caste in its entirety. For background, you may wish to consult the information below:
To register, please visit: https://bit.ly/NBF2021MassWatchParty
Author Talks Committee
State Library of Massachusetts
