Dayton Metro Library’s next guest speaker as part of the Social Justice Speaker Series will be Leah Thomas – with programs on Thursday, September 8, from 11 am-12 pm and 6-7:30 pm. Both programs will be held in the Eichelberger Forum at the Main Library.
Thomas is an environmentalist from Santa Barbara, CA, who coined the term “eco-communicator” to describe her style of activism. She uses her passion for writing and creativity to explore the relationship between social justice and environmentalism through an intersectional lens, which she will discuss with the audience.
Registration is not required. The Main Library is located at 215 East Third Street, Dayton. For more information about Thomas and the other Social Justice Speakers, visitDaytonMetroLibrary.org/SocialJustice or call the Library’s Ask Me Line at 937.463.2665.
Next on the Social Justice Speaker Series:
HANIF ABDURRAQIB
Tuesday, September 20, 10 – 11:15 am
Main, The Eichelberger Forum
For Adults, Teens, and Tweens
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His first collection of essays, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by BuzzFeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. His newest release, A Little Devil In America (Random House, 2021) was a winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and the Gordon Burn Prize, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pen/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award . In 2021, Abdurraqib was named a MacArthur Fellow. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
