The New Haven Independent and Medium have an account of a recent Literacy Forum on “Equity and Digital Literacies,” with Amira Dhalla of Mozilla.

Previous posts, for example in November 2017, mentioned the book Self-Evident Truths: Contesting Equal Rights from the Revolution to the Civil War.

Recently the book was the subject of a (February 2018) podcast on the New Books Network, among those collected here, and also reviewed in the Journal of American History.

(Disclosure, again: My father, Richard D. Brown, is the author.)

My son and I recently read Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court, a memoir by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (and Raymond Obstfeld).  After recounting experiences with Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali among others, the basketball Hall of Famer, author, activist, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient concludes: “[what] most interests me now: helping others along their chosen paths.  That's why I wrote this book.  To be that coach who takes by the hand anyone who ever feels picked on or put upon, outraged but out of range, vilified yet voiceless.”  On “this road ... so often we feel like we're walking it alone.”  Yet, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes, “I didn't walk it alone, even when I thought I was.  No one has to.  Coaches and teachers and family and friends are everywhere, reaching out a hand for you to take.  I hope this book is one such hand.”  (p. 289)

Yesterday, my kids and I participated in one of the Connecticut versions of the national “March for Our Lives.”  We were at the state Capitol in Hartford, where speakers including U.S. senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy talked not only of school shootings but also of domestic and urban violence--and the role of guns.  Improved background checks were among the cited priorities, as a crowd of teachers, students, and others of all ages cheered and chanted.

There is a constant need for blood donors.  I was able to give blood the other day and would invite anyone eligible to consider doing so.  The Red Cross offers encouragement.