2/1/2024 0 Comments Brittney cooper booksHow does the Zimmerli exhibit tell the story/help you reach your audience? This book tries to engage young people at the intersection of what is good in terms of the fight for justice and what is hard in terms of our persisting legacies of discrimination. The true test of whether you know your material well is the ability to translate it so that anybody who engages in good faith can participate.Ĭhildren almost always engage in good faith, and they deserve to be taken seriously as thinkers learning what it means to navigate a world filled with both good and hard things. This is a core principle of mine as a public Black feminist scholar, and someone of working-class origins: Always respect your audiences. ![]() How did you balance that with some possibly complex or challenging/frightening notions? In reading your book, this was immediately noticeable: You don’t talk down to your audience you speak to them as equals. And in the case of Bridges and Copeny, they began their activism as girls, which I hope inspires young people to know you don't have to wait till you are an adult to begin standing up for justice. Many of these freedom fighters are among us today. I wanted young people to know that standing up for what's right is not just something that happened in the past with people who are long gone. Ruby Bridges, Bree Newsome and Mari Copeny span three generations of Black women's and girls' activism, and they are all still alive. So, I picked some of my favorites across the span of American history, many of whom I don't necessarily get to write or teach about in depth, and chose to highlight them. The great thing about being a women's studies professor is that I get to talk about all these women in some capacity in my daily life. How did you choose the women you are highlighting? What does bringing together Ruby Bridges, Bree Newsome and Mari Copeny teach us, and why did you want to bring together their stories? I plan to write at least two more children's books with Scholastic. In this moment when our country is embattled over the teaching of critical race theory, which is really a battle over teaching American history properly, disrupting the kind of white-washed history of our country and normalizing the presence, participation and contributions of Black women and girls from the 1700s forward feels precipitous. I want them to see American history from the perspective of Black women and girls who have grappled with everything from slavery and the Constitution, to racial segregation, to the contemporary fight for clean water. This particular book is for children ages 5-8. What is your target audience and what do you want them to learn from the book? ![]() They should start as early as possible, and this is my offering to young people in service of that mission. In my life as a professor, I get to teach about Black women who have fought for this country to be a better, more inclusive place, but I don't believe those conversations should begin or end in college. ![]() Writing this book is my opportunity to be in conversation with young people about Black women and girl freedom fighters in a moment where we really need to expand our understanding of who our heroes and sheroes can be. It was ground-shifting for me in helping me to understand the history of the racism I was already experiencing at school and what the fight for freedom might look like. Why did you decide to write a children's book?Īs a fourth grader, I learned the story of Rosa Parks in a young adult biography of Dr. Cooper, an associate professor of women's, gender and sexuality studies and Africana studies at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, talks about her inspiration for Stand Up! and how she approached writing for a younger audience.
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