Book and Music Discussion at DePaul

Mihaela reports: With the help of more than twenty community partners, the Chicago Public Library’s One Book One Chicago program has focused on expanding citywide community relations through events that facilitate learning and engagement not only with the OBOC selection but also with a book related theme essential to the lives of all Chicagoans.

DePaul University’s English Department has a longstanding partnership with OBOC. This winter quarter, Professor Francesca Royster of the English Department is teaching an undergraduate course exploring the current season’s selection, Greg Kot’s I’ll Take you There.

Expanding on the larger OBOC theme, “Music: The Beat of Our City,” “To Lift Your Spirits and to Motivate You: Mavis Staples and Songs of Resistance” was hosted at the Richardson Library on DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus on Wednesday, January 17, 2018.

Dr. Royster and Dr. Amor Kohli (African and Black Diaspora Studies) joined WBEZ’s Ayana Contreras to discuss selections from The Staple Singers’ repertoire along with other songs of protest. It was an evening of intense music punctuated with significant discussion. Arguing for the book’s applicability not only to the past history of the civil rights movement but also to contemporary times, the panel offered personal choices that spoke to their field of interest and study to position the importance and relevance of songs of resistance at the intersection of music, time, and history.