This interdisciplinary essay collection explores how the rhetoric of social justice can become a reality in the United States by interrogating matters of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access in a variety of contexts ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement and children’s literature to the contemporary workplace and university.

Social justice rhetoric is prevalent in contemporary America, but are we as a nation ready to do the work to effect real change? Emily Allen Williams has gathered a group of essays that interrogate matters of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. In doing so, the essays contribute to what Williams call “tilling the ground,” i.e. a process by which the nation is prepared for the changes that must follow the rhetoric through the work of diversity and inclusion in a variety of social arenas. With subject matters ranging from the Black Lives Matter movement and children’s literature to the contemporary workplace and university, the collected essays present and analyze progress that is already being made and outline ways for our society to continue to move this process forward until the rhetoric of social justice manifests in actual conditions of inclusion, diversity, equity, and access throughout the nation.

Introduction: Finding Our Way Together: Discussions on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access

Emily Allen Williams, Editor

Part 1: Interrogations of Blackness, Whiteness, Racism, and Beyond: Historical and 21^st Century Considerations

Chapter One: Black Lives Matter: Dismantling Racism and Rewriting History in the Confederate Monuments

Nancy Wellington Bookhart

Chapter Two: The Black Lives Matter Movement and Anglophone African Caribbean Impact: Transposition of the Caribbean Experience in the Complexities of the African American Context

Sharon Albert Honore

Chapter Three: The New Back to Africa Movement: The Black Diaspora Seeking Opportunity and Refuge in the Motherland

Karl Ellis Johnson

Part 2: Excluded or Included? African American, Non-Conformist, and Transgender

Chapter Four: (Re)Defining Hi-stories: Conducting and Preserving Oral Histories in Africana Studies

Catherine L. Adams

Chapter Five: Did You Bring Me Here to Be Like You? Philosophizing About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Anthony Sean Neal

Chapter Six: Missing the Whole Picture: A Content Analysis of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Characters in Children’s Literature

Eden-Reneé Hayes and Saisha Manan

Chapter Seven: Organizational Culture: Pivoting on DEI

Willette Neal

Chapter Eight: Approaching Diversity, Equity, and Race Work in 21^st Century America

Gwendolyn VanSant

Part 3: Challenging 21^st Century Notions of Diversity on College and University Campuses

Chapter Nine: Black Lives Matter on Campus: Choreographing Protest

Peter A. Campbell

Chapter Ten: Black Maleness at a Public Regional University

Mark Wagner and Katherine L. Cleary

Chapter Eleven: Meta-Reflections: Teaching Black Psychology at a Predominately White Undergraduate Institution

Sandra Virginia Gonsalves-Domond

Chapter Twelve: The Case for Inclusive Instructional Design

Samantha Calamari

Index

About the Contributors