Empowerment Shelf

By Elizabeth Sammons with love from Neighbor-to-Neighbor

Calling In, 54 Miles and Don’t Go are Neighbor-to-Neighbor’s books of note for this month.  This literature intends to expand our awareness, theology and/or acceptance of diverse viewpoints. We hope you’ll discover how these writings from various generations embrace what it means to be human and to walk in spirit. …

Calling In by Ross, Loretta
This author has deprogrammed white supremacists, a survivor who’s taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism. With stories from her five remarkable decades in activism, she vividly illustrates why calling people in—inviting them into conversation instead of conflict and focusing on your shared values over a desire for punishment—is the more strategic choice if you want to make real change. And she shows you how to do so.

54 Miles by Pitts, Leonard
March, 1965. Adam, raised in Harlem by his white father, George, and black mother, Thelma, returns to his parents' home state of Alabama to join in the voting rights campaign, only to be brutalized in the Bloody Sunday melee. Meanwhile, his uncle Luther has made a shocking discovery. He's found the lynching murderer of his parents in a rest home, literally at Luther's mercy. And Luther, who has never overcome this life-defining trauma, grapples with the question of what justice demands. 

Don’t Go by Johnson, Tonika Lewis, and Krysan, Maria
In cities across the US and beyond, we hear "don't go" -- avoid at all costs those Black and Brown disinvested neighborhoods that have become bywords for social disorder and urban decay. This book is a collection of intimate stories that uncover the hidden influence of both subtle and overt "don't go" messages and the segregation they perpetuate in Chicago. One by one, the storytellers upend pessimism with candid, deeply personal, humorous, and heartbreaking tales, and with novel ideas for simple actions that can serve as antidotes to both racism and "place-ism."