Book Talks for Educators at Busboys and Poets

Below are selected upcoming events of special interest to teachers at Busboys and Poets. Teaching for Change operates the bookstore at Busboys and Poets and helps to coordinate the author events. These events are free and open to the public. For many more events, visit the full BBP calendar.

Many thanks to the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for their support of selected author events for teachers. All titles can be purchased from Teaching for Change's Busboys and Poets Bookstore or online at our webstore.

February 25 - 7pm
Rethinking Early Childhood Education
Ann Pelo, the editor of Rethinking Early Childhood Education, will offer a presentation based on the premise of her book which is that early childhood is when we develop our core dispositions -- the habits of thinking that shape how we live. Ann will talk about talk about how a commitment to social justice teaching can guide the way we engage policy questions as well as the way we teach young children. Maurice Sykes, Sue Bredekamp, and Cecelia Alvarado will comment on the implications for DC area early childhood programs and then there will be an open discussion. Rethinking Early Childhood Education is anthology of inspiring stories about social justice teaching with young children. It includes outstanding writing from childcare teachers, early-grade public school teachers, scholars, and parents. An outstanding resource for childcare providers, early-grade teachers, as well as teacher education and staff development programs. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. This event will be held at the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage, 1816 12th St., NW Hosts: Early Childhood Leadership Institute, Teaching for Change's Busboys and Poets Bookstore, DCAEYC, and the WTU Early Childhood Teacher Network. Refreshments will be provided. Free and open to the public. Reservations are encouraged: RSVP. For more information, earlychildhoodleadership@yahoo.com or 202-986-1819.

April 6 - 6:30pm
  Do They Know I'm Running?
by David Corbett, Ballantine Books
From acclaimed author David Corbett, a stunning and suspenseful novel of a life without loyalties and the borders inside ourselves. Roque Montalvo is wise beyond his eighteen years. Orphaned at birth, a gifted musician, he’s stuck in a California backwater, helping his Salvadoran aunt care for his brother, an ex-marine badly wounded in Iraq. When immigration agents arrest his uncle, the family has nowhere else to turn. Roque, badgered by his street-hardened cousin, agrees to bring the old man back, relying on the criminal gangs that control the dangerous smuggling routes from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, to the U.S. border. But his cousin has told Roque only so much. In reality, he will have to transport not just his uncle but two others. Roque discovers that his journey involves crossing more than one kind of border, and he will be asked time and again to choose between survival and betrayal—of his country, his family, his heart. Thanks to support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 10 copies of this book will be given away to current K-12 classroom teachers who attend the talk. 

April 12 - 6:30pm
A People's History of Science
by Clifford D. Conner, Nation Books
Science has always been a collective endeavor. In A People's History of Science, hunter-gatherers, peasant farmers, sailors, miners, blacksmiths, folk healers, and others who wrested the means of their survival from daily encounters with nature are returned to their rightful place in the history of science. Thanks to support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 10 copies of this book will be given away to current K-12 classroom teachers who attend the talk.

 

Prior Events

February 18 - 6pm
Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968
Produced by Judy Richardson and Bestor Cram, Northern Light
A documentary film that brings to light one of the bloodiest tragedies of the Civil Rights era: the dramatic account of the three black students killed in 1968, at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg. 23 students were injured and 3 were killed – most shot in the back by the state police while involved in a peaceful protest. Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968 is an excellent documentary which brings to light this untold story of the Civil Rights Movement including candid interviews with many of those involved in the event: students, journalists, officers on the scene, and the then-Governer. The film also provides a good understanding of the concept of Black Power in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. Judy Richardson will introduce the film and lead a post-film discussion. 2009. 57 minutes. A Special Busboys and Poets Focus-In! Presentation

February 2 - 6:30pm
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander, The New Press
As the United States celebrates the nation’s “triumph over race” with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status—much like their grandparents before them. In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

January 15 - 6:30pm
 The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and
No Logo
by Naomi Klein, Picador
On the ten-year anniversary of the Seattle protests, with anger mounting at the open collusion between corporations and governments, No Logo is being re-released with an extended new introduction. Among other developments, the new essay looks at the unprecedented bailout of Wall Street, as well as the rise of the Obama Brand (the most powerful brand in the world) and examines the troubling gaps between its marketing and reality. Naomi Klein is also the author of The Shock Doctrine, the groundbreaking alternative history of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free-market economic revolutiony.

January 11 - 6:30pm
Dark Days, Bright  Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama
by Peniel Joseph, Basic Civitas Books
The Civil Rights Movement is now remembered as a long-lost era, which came to an end along with the idealism of the 1960s. In Dark Days, Bright Nights, acclaimed scholar Peniel E. Joseph puts this pat assessment to the test, showing the '60s — particularly the tumultuous period after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act — to be the catalyst of a movement that culminated in the inauguration of Barack Obama. Joseph argues that the 1965 Voting Rights Act burst a dam holding back radical democratic impulses. This political explosion initially took the form of the Black Power Movement, conventionally adjudged a failure. Joseph resurrects the movement to elucidate its unfairly forgotten achievements.Told through the lives of activists, intellectuals, and artists, including Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, Amiri Baraka, Tupac Shakur, and Barack Obama, Dark Days, Bright Nights will make coherent a fraught half-century of struggle, reassessing its impact on American democracy and the larger world. Thanks to support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 10 copies of this book will be given away to current K-12 classroom teachers who attend the talk.

  

November 10 - 6:30pm
Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama Black Belt
by Hasan Kwame Jeffries, New York University Press
Drawing on an impressive array of sources ranging from government documents to personal interviews with Lowndes County residents and SNCC activists, Hasan Kwame Jeffries tells, for the first time, the remarkable full story of the Lowndes County freedom struggle and its contribution to the larger civil rights movement. Bridging the gaping hole in the literature between civil rights organizing and Black Power politics, Bloody Lowndes offers a new paradigm for understanding the civil rights movement. See the author on Book TV in an interview about this book at the 2009 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians. Thanks to support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 10 copies of this book will be given away to classroom teachers who attend the talk.

November 18 - 6:30pm
The People's History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play
by Dave Zirin, The New Press
A riotously entertaining chronicle of larger-than-life sporting characters and dramatic contests and what amounts to an alternative history of the United States as seen through the games its people played. As Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop, puts it, "After you read him, you'll never see sports the same way again." Just released in paperback, this is an ideal text for high school students who can study all of US history through the lens of sports. For more about the book and the author, visit Edge of Sports. Thanks to support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 20 copies of this book will be given away to current classroom teachers who pre-register and attend the talk.  

As with all events at Busboys and Poets, dinner and drinks can be ordered throughout the event. Seating is on a first come - first served basis.

The bookstore at Busboys and Poets is operated by Teaching for Change.