On April 20th, Rise Up Against Racism opened its thirteenth Little Free Antiracist Library. This very special Library, funded by John Muir Health, will be housed in the Audre Lorde Reading Room of the Rainbow Community Center. The Library is filled with selections that center on younger readers and includes many books that celebrate LGBTQIA+ people, their valuable contributions, and unique lived experiences. We are proud to partner with John Muir Health and the Rainbow Community Center in opening this special Library. Jamie Elmasu, John Muir Health’s Director of Community Health Improvement ..read more

On November 17th, Rise Up Against Racism opened its twelfth Little Free Antiracist Library. It is our first Little Free Antiracist Library to be opened at a Mount Diablo Unified School District site, and we are thrilled to partner with the El Dorado Middle School team and John Muir Health in making this Library installation a reality. El Dorado’s Little Free Antiracist Library houses RUAR’s curated selection of books, with a central focus on selections for young adults. Included in the Library is The 1619 Project’s anthology of essays. The powerful collection chronicles the consequences of sl ..read more

On Sunday, May 1st, Rise Up Against Racism opened its newest Little Free Antiracist Library, located at Walnut Creek’s Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. The Library is sponsored by Carole Wynstra (mother of co-founder Meg Honey) and is stewarded by Jessica and Mike Kelley, who have been tremendous supporters of RUAR since its inception. Pastor Rustin Comer opened the ribbon-cutting event by expressing his gratitude for the moment, saying that a Little Free Antiracist Library at Saint Matthew is “a dream come true.” Nestled on Wiget Lane in a busy stretch across the street from ..read more

On Sunday, March 20th, Rise Up Against Racism opened its newest Little Free Antiracist Library. It is our first in Sonoma County, and it is located at PPSC Mentor Me at the Cavanagh Recreation Center: a beloved regional institution that serves Petaluma youth with academic, social, and recreational programming. Petaluma Little Free Antiracist Library steward Beth Green (right) was joined by PPSC Executive Director, Elece Hempel at the March 20th opening. Our steward, Beth Green, enthusiastically engaged with members of her community and received tremendous support from neighbors and fr ..read more

On Sunday, May 1st, Rise Up Against Racism opened its 12th Little Free Antiracist Library, located at Walnut Creek’s Saint Matthew Lutheran Church. The Library is sponsored by Carole Wynstra (mother of co-founder Meg Honey) and is stewarded by Jessica and Mike Kelley, who have been tremendous supporters of RUAR since its inception. Pastor Rustin Comer opened the ribbon-cutting event by expressing his gratitude for the moment, saying that a Little Free Antiracist Library at Saint Matthew is “a dream come true.” Nestled on Wiget Lane in a busy stretch across the street from W ..read more

On Sunday, March 20th, Rise Up Against Racism opened its eleventh Little Free Antiracist Library. It is our first in Sonoma County, and it is located at PPSC Mentor Me at the Cavanagh Recreation Center: a beloved regional institution that serves Petaluma youth with academic, social, and recreational programming. Petaluma Little Free Antiracist Library steward Beth Green (right) was joined by PPSC Executive Director, Elece Hempel at the March 20th opening. Our steward, Beth Green, enthusiastically engaged with members of her community and received tremendous support from neighbors and ..read more

Rise Up Against Racism awarded a community benefit grant to bring antiracist books to under-resourced communities in Contra Costa County, California. John Muir Health, a not-for-profit health care system dedicated to providing the highest quality patient care in the San Francisco Bay Area, has provided community grant funding to support Rise Up Against Racism’s antiracist initiatives in Contra Costa County, California. The partnership aligns with John Muir Health’s mission to improve the health of the communities it serves with quality and compassion so that all residents can achieve and maint ..read more

“It’s not until we know the stories of each other that we embrace our humanity. When I know the stories of my people and my culture, that’s when I become human myself.” — Ezra Hyland Rise Up Against Racism was founded on the idea that education has the power to radically transform society. Our work centers on ensuring that children and adults have ready access to antiracist books that are genre diverse and uplift the experiences of many different groups. We are guided by the research of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop, who published the groundbreaking essay: “Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors” i ..read more

On Sunday, October 3rd, Rise Up Against Racism opened its tenth Little Free Antiracist Library. The milestone day was exciting for so many reasons, and we loved celebrating with an inspiring community of supporters.  Our newest installation, located at the intersection of Pine Hollow and Mitchell Canyon Road in Clayton, was made possible by the steadfast work of steward Cheryl Willis. Over the last ten months, Cheryl engaged with the community, solicited donations, scouted out potential locations, and evangelized Rise Up Against Racism’s work. She worked tirelessly and passionately to ra ..read more

This weekend, we were honored to open our ninth Little Free Antiracist Library at 1325 Milton Avenue at the south end of Walnut Creek. We were thrilled to find the Main family to steward this new library and were moved by their passion to bring antiracist books to their community. With this library, we are bringing young people, friends, and neighborhood residents rich and ready access to books that elevate diverse voices as well as inform and inspire us all to understand and actively dismantle racism. We know that education and antiracist learning is a continual process. We have filled this ..read more