Looking for a good book? With the Columbus READS: One City, One Book initiative, you can read along with the entire city.
Image courtesy of the Columbus Metropolitan Library
The program, a collaborative effort between the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Mayor Michael B. Coleman, and Columbus City Schools, encourages all central Ohioans to read Wil Haygood’s Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America by Nov. 12.
Marshall was the first black man to serve as a Supreme Court justice and also the founder of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Showdown focuses on the grueling five-day hearing Marshall endured before his official appointment to the Supreme Court.
“It’s timely. It’s a great opportunity for Columbus to gather around and discuss topics related to race, prejudices, issues we are very much dealing with as country,” says Ben Zenitsky, marketing & communications specialist at the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
Haygood, a Columbus native and close friend of Mayor Coleman, has written biographies on Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sammy Davis Jr., and Sugar Ray Robinson, as well the column in the Washington Post that inspired Lee Daniels’ film The Butler.
There will be opportunities to gather for discussion at the end of the initiative.
“We are in the planning phases of a finale event that will take place in November. We hope to get Wil back to Columbus to lead it,” Zenitsky says.
The library has ordered 500 print and digital versions of the book and plans to donate the extras to high school libraries.
