Week 34: Harper Lee

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

By the time you graduate from college, it’s quite possible that you will have read “To Kill a Mockingbird” three times or more. This classic American novel is required reading in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country. This week we celebrate the birth of its author, Harper Lee.

Lee has received some of the most prestigious awards for writing “Mockingbird,” including a Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But in spite of her potential for fame, Lee has never published another book, nor has she ever given a speech. In a rare letter to Oprah Winfrey that she allowed to be published, however, Lee wrote the following about her love of reading:

“My sisters and brother, much older, read aloud to keep me from pestering them; my mother read me a story every day, usually a children's classic, and my father read from the four newspapers he got through every evening. Then, of course, it was Uncle Wiggily at bedtime.. Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. Instant information is not for me. I prefer to search library stacks because when I work to learn something, I remember it.”

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Monroeville, Alabama to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 33: Martin Luther King

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Letters can have as much power to move people’s souls as poems, songs, and books. One of the most significant letters ever written in American history was written out of a jail cell, this week in 1963. The jail was located in Birmingham, Alabama, and the man who wrote it was Martin Luther King, Jr.

King had been arrested for leading a non-violent protest against the leaders and stores of Birmingham, who supported the segregation of blacks from whites. At the time there were leaders from other churches who supported King’s goals, but criticized him for leading protests, instead of waiting for the court system to resolve the matter. King powerfully argued in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail that “any law that degrades human personality is unjust” and that we have a “moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.. openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty.”

You already know King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Now get to know his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as Birmingham, Alabama to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 32: Hip Hop Music

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

Students, you may know a lot about Hip Hop music, but how much do you know about Hip Hop history? Let’s take a pop quiz. When and where did hip hop music begin? And who is credited with starting it?

Hip Hop music first appeared in the early 1970’s at large block parties in New York City. The music and dance at these parties were a blend of African-American, Puerto Rican, and Jamaican influences. And the man who pioneered the role of DJ at these parties was hip hop legend DJ Kool Herc, who was born this week in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1955.

Hip Hop’s distinctive rapping element has its origins in West Africa, where singers and poets called “griots” have traveled the area for hundreds of years, preserving the oral traditions of their culture. Griots still play a role today in West African countries like Mali, the Gambia, Guinea, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as New York City or West Africa to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!

Week 31: Art Spiegelman and Maus

Diversity is any kind of variety that makes our world a better place.

The Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious awards that a journalist or writer can receive. On this week in 1982, the Pulitzer Prize committee made an historic decision—to recognize a comic book as a literary work. Art Spiegelman received a Pulitzer Prize for his comic book series Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.

Part of what makes Maus such an extraordinary work of literature is the manner in which it reveals the power of comics to convey the essence of a story in its own original way—in this case, the horrors and complexities of the Nazi Holocaust. The critical acclaim of Maus helped to shatter preconceived notions about comics, and paved the way for an entire generation of graphic novel artists and their followers, like many of you.

Remember, you don’t have to travel as far as the offices of the Pulitzer Prize to find diversity. There are hundreds of opportunities to celebrate diversity right here at your own school. Find one today!