Unique National Book Award Honors Books that Celebrate Human Rights and Social Justice
10 December 2006 In the only award of its kind, a national center for the study of bigotry and human rights today (Human Rights Day) named 10 new books as outstanding in showing the possibility for social change and resiliency in the face of obstacles.
The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights announced the winners of the 22nd annual Myers Outstanding Book Awards, which recognize exemplary works that challenge social injustices, erased histories, and the pessimism that says change in impossible. The Center (http://www.myerscenter.org) was established in 1984 and works to promote ways for people to become more active in creating an equitable world for all.
"The books honored by the Myers Award uniquely cut through denials of myriad forms of bigotry in America, and distinctively speak of alternative possibilities," says Loretta J. Williams, director of the Myers Outstanding Book Awards. "You can't 'un-educate' the person who learns to read. Books help convey the exhilaration of challenge and resiliency in history, past and present."
The independent Myers Center is housed at Simmons College in Boston, in a partnership that reflects the college's vision for human rights and global human justice. Simmons College President Susan C. Scrimshaw lauded the Myers Awards for "inspiring women and men to a reflective and active civic life."
"At every phase of our lives," said Scrimshaw, "we must stop and ask questions of our assumptions. So many people deny injustices. A reflective life is one where we do more than 'go with the flow.' Intentional innovative creativity in dismantling inequities and helping build global human rights is needed, and these important awards honor and reward that."
The range of topics addressed by the authors includes: how white children learn, and can un-learn, the "power codes" of racism; how the wealth of the U.S. is racialized and gendered; how the arts of those in the African Diaspora have expressed the pain and joy of life; how determined women in the anti-poverty days took to the streets and to community development despite the odds; how many women whose histories have been "erased" have been innovative change agents; how the quest for jobs and justice led to more inclusive workplaces despite organized resistance; how white Ellis Island ethnicity came to trump Black power; how pressure not to bring one's "whole self" to the office or the public limits civil and human rights; how fear pervades the Arab, Muslim and dark-skinned communities; and how the value of positive family nurturing trumps who one's parents are.
"There is a remarkable confluence in the themes and messages," said Williams. "People can -- and must -- resist the power codes placing them in harm's way."
The 2006 Myers Outstanding Book Award winners are:
-- "What If All The Kids Are White? Anti-Bias Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families," by Louise Derman-Sparks and Patricia G. Ramsey with Julie Olsen Edwards, Teachers College Press 2006
-- "Roots, Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights in America," by Matthew Frye Jacobson, Harvard University Press 2006
-- "The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide," by Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar Wright, Rose M. Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson, The New Press 2006
-- "Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace," by Nancy MacLean, Russell Sage/Harvard University Press 2006
-- "We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11," Tram Nguyen, Beacon Press 2005
-- "Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty," by Annelise Orleck, Beacon Press 2005
-- "Creating Black Americans: African-American History & Its Meaning: 1619 to the Present," by Nell Irvin Painter, Oxford University Press 2006
-- "The Tango Makes Three" (children's book), by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, Simon and Schuster 2005
-- "Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America," by Karenna Gore Schiff, Miramax 2006
-- "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights," by Kenji Yoshino, Random House 2006
For further information and to obtain .jpgs of book jackets and authors, contact Loretta Williams at lorewill@myerscenter.org
Source: prnewswire
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