A few months ago, one night, while they were having dinner, a girl of barely eleven years old named Marley Dias told her mother that she was "Sick of reading about white boys and their dogs" due to the compulsory readings that they sent in their school located in a neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Given this, her mother asked her what she planned to do about it, to which she replied
"Launch a campaign to collect books in which black girls are the protagonists and not secondary characters"
With a clear decision, these words were not forgotten and Marley Dias herself launched the # 1000BlackGirlBooks campaign with the aim of finding a thousand books in which black girls are the protagonists of the stories and then donate the books to a low-income library located in Jamaica, where Marley's mother, Janice, grew up. For her mother, this initiative that she carries out with her daughter is very important because of what it means for black girls who live in a society surrounded by white people.
“I did not need a reference because I grew up in a country where most of the people were black but she lives in a white neighborhood and being able to identify with a reference is very important for her and for young black girls in the US. The context is very important for them: to be able to read stories that reflect experiences close to those they live ”.
The campaign began in November 2015 and its closing date was February 1, so Marley had 4 months to find 1000 books featuring black girls. In the first month he managed to collect 100 books, arriving at the beginning of January with just over half. However, due to the importance of this campaign, Marley was able to reach the figure of 1000 books at the end of the campaign term.
This campaign started and achieved by an eleven-year-old girl is very important due to all that it means because many schools fall within the same patterns and their compulsory readings are very similar to each other, not giving the opportunity to have different points of view to that all young people can put themselves in the role of the different people that exist in the world. In addition to the value shown by the small and the demonstration that, if you want something, with effort you can get it.
Above all, I think that this type of campaign can be very important because is a step towards equality. If the compulsory readings in schools were of all kinds of characters: white, black, heterosexual and homosexual, young people would learn what an egalitarian society really is, since from a young age they would be seeing it as something normal, something that even appears in books that they read, where what the majority of society represents is usually reflected. If the books they read are always about straight, white boys, a change will mean something strange and out of the ordinary in society. This is why reading is so important and be careful when choosing what young people read, as they should be able to appreciate variety that hides in this world of literature.
I leave you a video in English where this little girl appears with her mother, who went to a program to explain this great literary movement that they carried out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVKLfabZ3G8
What do you think of this initiative that this little girl took? I think it makes it quite clear that we must take more into account the needs of the little ones and value their tastes and opinions when forcing them to read books, because many times, by not choosing the right book for them, it makes them able to get away in this world of literature and see it as an obligation rather than a pleasure.