A collaboration with St. Louis County Library and a grassroots nonprofit, We Stories, has helped parents in St. Louis to have conversations with their children about race and racism.
In the presentation We Stories: Using Children’s Literature to Discuss Race, the organizers of We Stories shared the origins of the concept – 2 mothers with young children who realized, after the tragic events in Ferguson, that they, like most other white families, had never thought to discuss race with their children. They began to have a vision for a way that they may be able to make a difference by introducing children’s books to white families. To start a conversation about race and racism. To use picture books as a window into a world of which their children were unaware.
They approached the St. Louis County Library (where they had done all of their research), if they could collaborate to bring this discussion to even more families.
The ability of one nonprofit is limited. A single thread in a complex tapestry of change across a community. But We Stories and the St. Louis County Library are creating change. They are helping children and their families to start the discussion.
For more info: http://www.westories.org/#welcome.