At this difficult and painful moment for our country, Lee & Low Books condemns the ongoing state-sanctioned violence towards Black people across the nation. We are in solidarity with Black communities and everyone working to protect Black lives.
We believe it is important in this moment for all of us in the publishing industry to specifically acknowledge how anti-Blackness within our industry has contributed to the ongoing oppression of Black people. The publishing industry continues to uphold a system of institutional racism that oppresses, tokenizes, and shuts out Black people, who make up more than 13% of the US population but only 5% of the publishing workforce. Our industry has denied Black readers the opportunity to see themselves in books, and has put Black people at risk by continually centering White voices.
We are in solidarity with Black authors, illustrators, educators, librarians, readers, and publishing professionals. We commit to uplifting Black voices, stories, and creators through our work, and we hope our industry peers will do the same. It is our job and the job of every publisher in our industry to not only shed light on the pervasiveness of systemic racism and anti-blackness within our industry, but to actively dismantle it.
Places to donate:
–The George Floyd Memorial Fund
–The Bail Project and National Bail Fund Network
–Communities United Against Police Brutality
–Reclaim the Block
–NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Anti-Racism Education Resources:
–Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture: Talking About Race
–EmbraceRace
–Teaching Tolerance
–The Conscious Kid
–Center for Racial Justice in Education
