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The Valley Cottage Library Diversity Committee strives to represent the interests of all patrons and staff by encouraging diversity of thought to foster an inclusive culture and inspire connection and empathy throughout our community.
"Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in."
--Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March for Integrated Schools, April 18, 1959
“There will come a time when we will love humanity, when we will gain the courage to fight for an equitable society for our beloved humanity, knowing, intelligently, that when we fight for humanity, we are fighting for ourselves.”
-- Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
“Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge.”
-- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
“The secret of our success is that we never, never give up.”
– Wilma Mankiller
“Only people of color have the ability and experience to articulate what it means to constantly have your humanity assaulted by racism. To write about racism is difficult; to live with it and have all the systems constantly reminding you that this nation does not recognize your humanity is much more difficult. As an African American, racism is in the air that I breathe and imposes itself on every aspect of my life. I can't run from it, and I can't hide from it. My only sane choice is to resist it and work to eliminate it.”
– Barbara Crain Major, Deconstructing Racism: A Path Toward Lasting Change by Barbara Crain Major and Joseph Barndt
Barbara Crain Major has more than forty years as a core trainer with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, the national anti-racist training and organizing institute.
"Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. I suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.”
--adreinne maree brown, Emergent strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds
This quote was quoted in a book recommended by Caroline: An Abolitionist's Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World by Patrisse Cullors
"I have great respect for the past. If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going. I have respect for the past, but I'm a person of the moment. I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place."
-- Maya Angelou
"When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence."
-- Unknown
“In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute”.
-- Thurgood Marshall
Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-American justice.