NEW: Racial Justice Resources for SNL Readers

Students Need Libraries (SNL) is based here in Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the world. George Floyd grew up here. His name and life are now a catalyst for so much hurt, protest, and hope – hope that the new waves of activism will result in long overdue systemic change. SNL sees the need to work against racism, the insidious assumptions we have all grown up with no matter our racial heritage. In that effort, SNL today opens a curation of resources to our school librarians, and to our school library stakeholders throughout Houston, in support of improving our understanding and implementation of racial justice. We also hope these resources support our K-12 students to understand and appropriately join activist efforts towards racial justice.
 
SNL has been working for Equity of Access as long as we have been active, but recent events raise our compulsion to curate these pages. We hope that librarians will refer here for tools to increase community understanding of the issues and their impacts, and to share these resources with their schools. We also hope that stakeholder allies* of school libraries, and even readers who don’t yet understand how to be stakeholder allies, will also find these pages useful because they will stay easy to find even after the dust begins to settle and the access to these resources begins to hide as the media turn to other topics.
 
These pages published today are just the start. We are working to cull the most appropriate choices for our community of K-12 librarians, teachers, parents and students. Please return often to see what is added as we move towards a more just world.
 
Currently (June 20, 2020), posted pages include:

• Racial Justice Resources for Houston Teachers and Families
• BLM & Teaching Tolerance
• A Primer for Racial Justice (Code Words & Vocabulary; Microaggressions)
• Allyship: What White People Can Do to Combat Racism
• Voting Awareness & Civil Discourse

 
Still under construction:

• Curriculum/Lesson Plans for Teachers and Librarians (Include PD For Librarians)
• Parenting Resources
• Materials Ready for Children
• Book & Media Recommendations (sorted by age)

We thank Velda Hunter, librarian at HISD's Yates High School, and friend James Martin, YA author and bookseller, for their support in vetting the links included.

*A Stakeholder Ally is anyone who supports equity of access by all K-12 students in local Houston public and private schools to fully staffed and fully funded school libraries. Librarians, teachers, parents, community members and students are all stakeholders in the goal of strong education for every student, a goal to which school libraries are instrumental contributors. Houston ISD and other school administrators, Houston ISD and other school board members and elected officials in policy- and decision-making positions are also stakeholders. The Houston community is stronger when EVERY K-12 student has strong literacy skills and a love of learning, both of which are fostered by strong school libraries across the districts.