Reading is fundamental. Between 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, it’s team #RockThoseReads, presenting Literacy Across Harlem Day. For their upcoming event, Total Equity Now (TEN) will once again attempt to engage an intergenerational team of community volunteers so that they can promote reading and also tell people about exactly who they are and the work they have done in Harlem.
This will take place on the northwest corner of West 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard. During the event, held on the first of every the month, organizers will speak about who they are and what work they have done. They will discuss personal reading habits, attempt to recruit others to read more, explain the importance of reading and more.
The idea is to get everyone interested in reading. It is educational, it is inspiring and it expands the mind. On Feb. 1, middle school students and parents from P.S./M.S. 57 in East Harlem joined TEN and partners to work on the “street team” project at 110th Street and Third Avenue in El Museo de Barrio, a Latin American museum that features art work from Latinos. Their project was so successful that it empowered them to believe they can replicate it in different parts of Harlem and be as successful.
For the next one, you can find TEN and their partners outside the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as they join forces with the Studio Museum of Harlem. That day will also mark the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Ralph Ellison, a famous writer during the Harlem Renaissance, the author of “Invisible Man” and a true #RockThoseReads champion.
If you’re a part of any Harlem-based school, youth-development organization, civic association or local business and would like to join TEN on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. as they strive to promote Harlem’s culture of reading and writing, please email info@totalequitynowharlem.org.