PPGJLI Launches Black History Month Campaign to Publish 100 Black Authors

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Feb. 19, 2023 - PRLog -- Planting People Growing Justice™ Leadership Institute (PPGJLI) founder, Dr. Artika Tyner, announced the launch of the non-profit organization's new Black History Month initiative, the 100 Black Authors campaign. The campaign will promote cultural preservation through the arts and humanities and build an ecosystem for new literary artists.

"PPGJLI is planting seeds of social change by training, equipping, and motivating the next generation of Black authors. The goal is to publish 100 Black authors over the next 10 years," said Tyner.

Youth are more likely to read stories in which they see themselves or their culture represented. PPGJLI has instituted numerous programs focused on increasing child literacy rates. A child's ability to read affects their success throughout life. Youth that can't read by fourth grade are more likely to drop out of school, be incarcerated, and live in poverty. PPGJLI is committed to dismantling this pipeline to prison and creating new pipelines to success.

PPGJLI (https://www.ppgjli.org/) focuses on promoting literacy by increasing access to diverse books in order to help children discover the joy in reading. According to Word Rated, the number of Black authors and Black characters in children's books is declining - again. In 2020, the number of Black characters in children's bestsellers decreased by 23 percent. There was a 31 percent decrease in children's bestsellers written by Black authors. A mere 12.12 percent of children's books feature characters that are Black or African. You are more likely to see a book with a black bear or black dog on the cover than a Black girl or Black boy.

Diversity in books has long been a talking point in the publishing industry. It may seem that there are more children's books with African American characters. It's a false perception born of increased awareness of the deficit rather than actual numbers.

A 2018 study conducted by Cooperative Childen's Book Center of Education (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed that children's books in 2018 had a main character that was an animal rather than an Asian, Black, Latinx, or Native American child. Only 10 percent of books had characters that were African or African American; 7 percent were Asian Pacific Islander/Asian Pacific; 5 percent were Latinx; and 2 percent were Native American/First Nation.

PPGJLI is making a commitment to change those statistics with its new initiative. The non-profit organization is leading the way to increased literacy and cultural identity among children in the BIPOC community, while providing opportunities and a voice for new Black writers (https://www.artikatyner.com/).