Reading Three: Social Justice and Equity

In this poem, the speaker explores how our culture would be lacking—in people, in music, in movements, in contributions—without contributions of African Americans.

In this poem, a black woman carefully analyzes her interaction with a white waitress, whose actions, although civil, are smoldering with superiority.

Until Daniel Beaty was 3 years old, his father would "knock knock" on his door every morning. This performance explores the shaping of personal identity in an incarcerated parent's absence.

In her poem, Kelly Norman Ellis brings to life a vivid picture of the kind of women she was surrounded and brought up by during her childhood in Mississippi. The poem's speaker takes you down south and makes you feel like a guest at the kitchen table by way of her descriptions.

This excerpt focuses on the lives of African-American students during the civil rights movement. After reading Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech in class in 1963, students in main character C.J.'s school are asked to share their dreams at a school assembly.