Community Reads

Each semester, EDS has selected a theme and corresponding book to prompt conversations about justice issues critical for faith communities.

2022-2023 Community Reads:

Spring 2023: The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart by Alicia Garza.

Alicia Garza is an organizer, political strategist, and co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network. She is Principal at the Black Futures Lab and the host of the Lady Don’t Take No podcast.

The Purpose of Power is a collection of Garza’s essays and speeches that focus on the power dynamics of race, gender, and class in the United States. The book explores the ways in which marginalized communities can come together to build collective power and create change, and how individuals can use their own power to advocate for social justice. It is a call to action for individuals and communities to use their power to create a more just and equitable society.

Fall 2022: The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of the Religious Nationalism by Katherine Stewart.

Katherine Stewart is an investigative reporter and author who has covered religious liberty, politics, policy, and education for over a decade. Her latest book, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of the Religious Nationalism, is a rare look inside the machinery of the movement that brought Donald Trump to power. Stewart’s journalism appears in the New York Times oped, NBC, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books.

Previous Community Reads:

  • Spring 2022 | Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
  • Fall 2021 | The 1619 Project: The Barbaric History of Sugar in America with Khalil Gibran Muhammad
  • Spring 2021 | Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret by Catherine Coleman Flowers
  • Fall 2021 | Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman
  • Spring 2020 | Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother by Sonia Nazario
  • Fall 2019 | No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell L. Moore
  • Spring 2019 | Spring The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
  • Fall 2018 | Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

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