One Book Athens: One Book, Many Stories "Stamped"
Athens Regional Library System
Innovation Synopsis
After the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, we felt compelled to work with our community to make sense from the senseless. Athens held its first One Book, One City reading program. Our mandate was to confront race and racism. We believed our community was hungry for answers, and we wanted to help provide them.
Challenge/Opportunity
We knew there were organizations, community leaders and activists who were working independently to resolve inequities in our community. We sought to bring them together and invited them to join us — 18 organizations and nine community leaders participated. We titled our series One Book, Many Stories and chose the book “Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism and You” by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi. Reading the book was part of our goal. We also wanted people engaging together across racial lines.
Key Elements of Innovation
Working with 27 community groups including businesses, Indy Bookstore and an IMLS Grant, we gave away over 500 copies of the books. Reading the book, our community talking inter-racially and taking action against racial injustice was our focus. It was a different type of One Book event. We held a series of seven unique events to get the conversation around anti-racism started. Over 770 people participated in these events, including for the first time, all 3 Stamped authors — Jason Reynolds, Ibram X Kendi and Sonja Cherry-Paul.
Achieved Outcomes
Over the last six months, we created a community network.
Positive outcomes:
- The community loved it.
- Conversations around anti-racism are continuing
- These 28 community groups, leaders/businesses all knew of each other, but over the course of a year, they have bonded to work on other anti-racism reconciliation projects together.
- The school district purchased "Stamped" for students and held their own book discussions.
- EDI efforts among businesses, government and nonprofits have increased.
