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From a young age, Shannon Singleton’s oldest son, Jaylen, shared her passion for reading. Through his reading, he quickly found there weren’t many books available with African American protagonists as the main character or any black characters at all. When he was in middle school, Jaylen said he didn’t see himself in the books he read. It was as if authors acted like black people didn’t exist. It made Shannon really sad because she experienced the same thing, but didn’t have a good answer as to why that was nor a solution to make it better.
Fast forward 10 years to 2020. Shannon was laid off with just about half of the rest of the world due to COVID. One of her happy places was teaching her youngest, Ty, how to drive! He was enjoying it too, but then something changed. He kept putting off his driving lessons.
One day she finally asked what was going on. He said “Mom, I don’t want to get stopped by the cops and get shot and die”. Again, like with Jaylen and the book situation, she had no answers and no solutions to make it better. She couldn’t tell her little one that what happened to people like George Floyd won’t happen to him.
She was depressed for about 2 weeks. Shannon finally sat Ty down and had a talk. She told him that when people harm folks like they did to George Floyd, they want people of color to be scared and not use the rights we were all given in this country. She told him that it is his right of passage just like any other American teenager to get his driver’s license and drive. Not doing so is like letting the devil win. She asked him if he was going to let the devil win. He said no!
Ty has been driving ever since then, but these two incidents made her think long and hard about what she could do to change both of these situations. Creating I Rise Publishing was her answer.
Our mission is to Change the Narrative of Minority Representation.
We are dedicated to:
Helping African American children see themselves in books
Breaking long held stereotypes and humanize blacks
Partnering with writers of different ethnicities to offer book collections from diverse cultures and backgrounds
Providing books that shed light on issues in minority communities
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