Twelve year old, Marley Dias, launched the 1000BlackGirlBooks campaign on Nov. 2015. The campaign was meant to encourage more diversity of young black women in literature by collecting books that feature black girls as the main protagonists.

After starting the campaign in sixth grade, Dias wanted to bring to light the need for more black female main characters in literature. Usually in popular books, it is rare that black females are the main protagonists of the story; if any at all, they usually serve as side characters, and are not given principal roles within the story.

“When I was a kid there wasn’t a lot of characters I could relate to,” says Jordyn Dunn a Link Leader at ERHS. “I think it’d be good if little girls, these days, could feel represented in media and literature.” It’s always been important to me to read a story that has a strong character as the main protagonist, with qualities that are realistic. When it comes to black females, it is difficult to find true representation that don’t follow certain stereotypes associated with black people, in general.

Rick Riordan is a prime example of providing diversity into his stories. He is best known for writing the ‘Percy Jackson’ series, but later branched into writing the ‘Kane Chronicles; a book series featuring two mixed siblings. Riordan’s narratives, that includes journeys of kids of different backgrounds and cultures, does a fantastic job at tackling the lack of diversity typically found in literature.

Unfortunately, Rick Riordan is only one out of the millions of authors that include diverse characters in his stories. The 1000BlackGirlBooks campaign is not only meant to bring forth more black girls in books, but also more diversity, overall, in literature.

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