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Monthly Newsletter
Our newsletter will come out monthly, highlighting updates of the coalition’s initiatives, petitions and events to support, suggested books, articles, films, and podcasts to explore, as well as relevant information for Rye citizens.
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February: Black History Month Newsletter
10 Movements You Need to Know
January 1, 2025
Book Recommendations
This non-fiction story describes Congo Square in New Orleans as a location of respite for slaves to experience a sense of freedom and express their passion for music.
Suitable for Children
Suitable for Children
Written by activist Grace Bryers, this NY Times best-seller serves as a great introduction to young kids about the power of identity and the importance of having a strong sense of self-esteem.
Suitable for Children
This story about a little girl and the role her father plays in her life delivers the powerful message of loving everything about yourself, especially your natural beauty.
Author Jacqueline Woodson recounts her childhood journey growing up in South Carolina and New York in the shadow of Jim Crow in the 1960s and 1970s.
Suitable for Young Adults
This story follows two brothers coming of age with divergent experiences, with Donte presenting as Black and Trey presenting as white.
Suitable for Young Adults
An engaging young adult novel of two friends who unravel past secrets when they find a series of hidden journals.
Suitable for Young Adults
In a harrowing story of loss and police brutality, main character Marvin Johnson comes to terms with the death of his twin brother, Tyler, at the hands of the police.
Suitable for Young Adults
The Hate U Give
Suitable for Young Adults
The groundbreaking debut novel from Angie Thomas that was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, which centers around high school student Starr Carter caught between two worlds after witnessing the fatal police shooting of her best friend.
Frederick Joseph penned this powerful book that reads like a letter to a friend. Having grown up in Westchester, this book hits close to home and is particularly relevant on his observations of growing up here in the county. The book is peppered with impactful interviews and powerful anecdotes about.
Suitable for Adults
Dr. Tatum, a psychologist specializing in the study of racism, examines the dynamics surrounding racial identities and divides across social structures throughout the United States.
Suitable for Adults
Garnering a myriad of book awards, White Rage explores the violent and racist pushback against African Americans from white Americans at points in the nation’s history including the Civil Rights Act and the War on Drugs.
Suitable for Adults
A must read book in the canon of American Literature, Maya Angelou’s autobiography is an engrossing coming-of-age story enriched by her poeticism.
Suitable for Adults
Movie Recommendations
Selma
Rated PG-13
Directed by Ava DuVernay, Selma depicts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s heroic march from Selma to Montgomery to achieve the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
12 Years a Slave
Rated R
Taking place before the Civil War, Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York, is sold into slavery in the south. As he struggles to cope with the brutality of his owner and finds solace in an unexpected companion, he meets a Canadian abolitionist who changes Solomon’s life entirely.
BlacKkKlansman
Rated R
Director Spike Lee depicts Ron Stallworth’s story as the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department. With the help of experienced detective Flip Zimmerman, Stallworth attempts to expose and dismantle the Ku Klux Klan.
Rated R
This four-time Oscar nominated film illustrates life in the Jim Crow South through Laura McAllan’s farm and her relationships with Jaime McAllan, her charming brother-in-law, and Ronsel Jackson, a black sharecropper who lives on the farm.
PG-13
The best-selling novel, The Hate U Give, was made into a movie that can be found on multiple streaming services. It centers around high school student Starr Carter caught between two worlds after witnessing the fatal police shooting of her best friend.
Podcast Recommendations
Suitable for Everyone
Hosts Andrew Ti and Tawny Newsome, along with guest speakers, answer questions from fans about whether or not something is racist.
Suitable for Everyone
Hosted by Tina Strawn, this podcast focuses on celebrating everyday activists who are disrupting, deconstructing, and dismantling racism.
BBC conducts interviews with remarkable black individuals that have made history in a variety of fields and others that were involved in the civil rights movement.
Suitable for Everyone