Celebrating Black History with Take-Home Crafts

This is a guest post by Arlia Delphonse. photo credit: the author You could say that Edmonia Lewis gave me the idea. When I saw an illustration of her peeking out from the new books cart, I knew my Black History Month programs would center around Black artists. The main event? A Black artists booklet …

Welcoming Our New Co-Editors: K. Sarah Ostrach

The Editorial Team of The Art of Diversity has recently recruited two new members, K. Sarah Ostrach and Mimosa Shah. This week, we've decided to take some time to showcase why they have decided to join the team. Welcome, K. Sarah Ostrach! As an art librarian, I combine my inquisitive curiosity, passion for objects, and …

American Politics of Black-Owned Bookstores

Admittedly, when it comes to social justice I’m an “all in” kinda person. When the initiative was sparked for libraries to support independent bookstores my eyes gleamed like a Cheshire cat, “I know something you don’t know,” kinda way. This glee was dulled by the concern that libraries would not reach out or patronize Black-Owned bookstores (BOBs). In a recent conversation with my mother about Joshua Clark Davis’s article, “FBI’s War On Black-Owned Bookstores,” we discussed Hoover’s efforts to eradicate...

The Dance We Do

Written by Diversity Committee Chair, Natisha Harper and Shari Byrd Today I danced. A friend asked, “How are you doing?” Given the country's state of unrest due to the murder of at least 5 unarmed black citizens by law enforcement, compounded by decades of my youth marred by a legacy of abuse to black bodies, …

To Speak of Racism and Brutality

By Natisha Harper, Chair of the Diversity Committee, and Shari Byrd To speak of racism and brutality, we must understand that anti-racist commitments necessitate strategies as evolving and exhausting as racist ones. The belief that the Civil Rights movement began in the 1950s and not on the ships that sailed kidnapped Africans to a horrendous …