Actress Sophia Bush said she was excited to invite her next guest to the stage at the White House’s first ever United State of Women summit, a woman who had started a movement called “1000 Black Girl Books” and was a mentee of Beyonce.
So the audience might have been surprised to see 11-year-old Marley Dias join Ms Bush on the stage, dressed stylishly in a white suit, pink tie and green-rimmed glasses.
Incredibly articulate, Ms Dias spoke about how she has collected more than 7,000 books about stories of black girls, and had distributed them to six cities.
“I started the 1000 Black Girl Books campaign because in my fifth grade class I wasn’t seeing any girls like me, black girls, in the books we were reading. I told my mum and she said: ‘well, what are you going to do about it?’” she said.
“So I decided to start a campaign in which I collect books where black girls are the main character and give them to communities where I see that there is this lack of diversity, because if we want equity, we need diversity.”
She added that reading about characters that represent the reader would encourage the reader to learn lessons and “improve their lifestyle”.
A full video of the United State of Women summit is below. Ms Dias makes an appearance around 10 hours and 22 minutes.
“Everyone needs a hero who looks like them,” she told Ms Bush and the audience of around 5,000 people.
"And just promote the idea of diversity," she replied when asked how people could help her. "So if you know that you have these resources that you can spread through your community, please do so."
She said she could not name her favorite single book, but mentioned “Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson as the book that touched her the most.
“I’m a very avid reader and it was the first book that I didn’t get it all,” she said. "That was important for me to have a challenge."
Ms Dias’ literacy tour across six cities started on 27 May and is ending in Atlanta in July.
