Aja Naomi King Quotes

Yahoo! is dedicated to promoting community awareness through outreach, education and information access.

The fact that - I mean, these are things to be talked about. You can't do anything without educating the public, right? And that's a slow work.

Businesses that distribute information and news are in the business of training and teaching people.

My mother was a librarian, and she worked at the Black Resource Center in South Central Los Angeles and would call me to tell me stories that she read about that were interesting to her.

The sight of parents, children and grandparents all descending on a tented field to enjoy the pleasure of ideas and books renews my faith in humanity.

I have a passion for libraries. They are potentially real community centers.

In 1995, I founded a storytelling program for children called Neighborhood Bridges in collaboration with the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, which is 15 elementary schools in the Twin Cities.

When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.

I'm grateful that I've enjoyed the support of libraries, bookshops and institutional funders.

Writing preserves only the thought of literate peoples.

the day Johannes Gutenberg finished his wooden printing press in 1440. Western civilization turned onto a path toward more efficient, accessible communication of knowledge.]

Reading is how I became an actor because I didn't grow up in a house where there was an awareness of film or theater. I also grew up in a house full of teachers, so reading was big in our world.

We need education across the board on all fronts.

If you think about it, the printing press allowed everyone to print books - it democratised the printing of information. For the first time, we could all print.

At this point in my life - age 24 - I have chosen a fairly strange path that not many are walking. I am a professional spoken word poet who tours the world performing and teaching. I run an organization called Project VOICE dedicated to using this art form as an education and empowerment tool in schools and communities of all kinds.

I am a big advocate of the role of the bookstore in the community.

I am honored to have served as our great nation's first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the 'Fanfare' every time I walk into or out of a room.

Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.

Without television and mass communication, that knowledge wouldn't exist. So I think it actually has the possibility of turning people into more understanding and more empathetic people.

The fact is that the learning process goes on, and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.

Documentaries are a powerful and effective way of bridging the gap between worlds, breaking through to new audiences that wouldn't otherwise be engaged - in essence, not preaching to the choir.

The City That Reads

My duty is to raise the consciousness of the American people.

If you're someone who reads, find someone who can't .... Join the community of conscience.

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained.